Magtastic Blogsplosion

Mygazines starts to reveal its monetising strategy
No news on if the lawyers tracked them down. Meanwhile on the legal side of the fence…

Publishers to give away 50 million digital magazines
Zinio are behind this; a rather smart way for them to get the lead over their rivals, but will it get many readers? Speaking of digital, did “iPhone magazine” PMc ever launch? It’s fashion week, but it isn’t in the iTunes app store as promised yet…

Yet another version of that Obama cover
How come almost all the parodies are funnier than the original?

Wired gives a play-by-play on how they edit an article
I’ve suffered at the hands of their editors before

ITV becomes digital newsagent
That’s the leading UK commercial TV broadcaster, for non-Britishers. They also own Friends Reunited, which is what nostalgic stalkers in England used to use before Facebook; this diginewsstand adds one more random bullet to their scattergun web offering

Yet another new luxury fashion supplement
Washington Post arrives late to the party, hunts around for any uneaten vol au vents

Taschen publishes entire reprint of Arts and Architecture
Now there’s a trend that could get interesting/expensive. They should open up the choice of their next reprint to the audience (I’d probably vote for Nest)

Life magazine resurfaces yet again, as a social photo archive website
If we’ve seen less than 3% of what they have, there are going to be some amazing unseen images in there. I just wish they’d donate them to the nation / Library of Congress on a similar non-commercial clause that NASA uses. Set the archive free!

Main distributor of foreign magazines in Japan goes bust
Via Jean Snow

Esquire e-cover hacked. To death
My review of the full anniversary issue coming soon

The Creative Review blog reports that the UK design award people D&AD have put their annual online, with free access for the first month only.

So go while you can and enjoy the magazines that could, including our own humble Ling (wait for the irritating intro animation to end and it’ll take you right there; click Subcategories to see more). Werk and Carl’s Cars are personal favourites.

RIP David Foster Wallace, one of the few writers around who still knew how to fill 12,000 words in a magazine, and do it beautifully; he also did more for footnotes than anyone since Charles Kinbote. (See how the Atlantic Monthly designed around them here.)

The steady decline in long articles in print comes in the main from the rise of the internet, short attention spans and increased time pressures; but it also comes from a dearth of great writers who know how to fill so much space meaningfully. And now there’s one less of those.

Right now, McSweeney’s homepage is dedicated to people remembering DFW (including editors from Esquire and the New York Times magazine). With the pound strong and nothing to lose, I tried once to commission him. I had to write him a letter - this was in 2005, and his agent had told me he had no cellphone number for him, nor did DFW have email. I wrote the letter, but never received a reply.

I can still never watch Roger Federer without remembering this piece, nor hear talk radio or eat lobster in the same way again. Which is what great magazine journalism should do – glorify in the space that newspapers don’t have, look in-depth, take time, describe, change people’s worlds. Bonus link: his brilliant, short summary of what 9/11 should mean.

Set aside an hour or so, click those links, and enjoy some truly engaging and stylish magazine journalism by a writer who is already sorely missed.

UPDATE: Harper’s now has a page with all his articles on it.

Dexter makes the front pages
The one inside the anniversary Esquire is a bit strange, as the cover of that one isn’t their typical cover line wall. It looks vaguely familiar and takes a moment to realise why

Maghound finally launches with 240 magazines
Free 30 day trial for as many magazines as you can eat. Will try it and let you know

McCain critic gets chance to shoot magazine portrait
Now all political advisors will be paranoid of any strobe below shoulder height, and magazines will immediately change their rights / usage contracts to stop this happening again. Some of it was rather vicious, others more thought out; visit her webpage daily for a new version. UPDATE: likely due to legal action, she’s taken down all the McCain pics from her website, and is now being represented by someone else. So it goes

Revista Unica in Portugal gets a facelift
Courtesy of Juan Antonio Giner’s team. Seems to manage being both playful and formal – tough combo to pull off, even tougher one to sustain

Bitch needs $40,000
They ask fans to help the wiener dog grow. Video includes recently-deceased niche magazines. Well, it worked for Arthur. UPDATE: They did it, and in only three days. You can only pull this trick once; let’s hope it helps stabilise them for the forseeable. Right now, they seem unsure how best to use the money

iDN loves infographics, creates info font
Looking forward to this one

It’s been a significant few days for magazines in the States. Latest addition to my pile appeared over the weekend: WSJ., the Wall Street Journal’s new magazine.

The reaction so far seems indifferent, but they seem confident that it’s a BMW 7 series. So how does it drive?

continue reading…

Time Out New York isn’t in trouble
Ish. The freelancers and vendors aren’t happy though

The Economist beats Berlusconi in Italian courts
That can’t have happened much. They celebrate by taking to the streets

Agent Provocateur creates alluring print insert
Posters, riddles hidden in images, online interaction to complete the story. Titillating

Videos from Stanford publishing course for mag professionals
Big names from Wired, Glamour and more reveal their insights on the mag world. Surprisingly engaging in parts

Universal News on demand!
Magazines from around the world delivered within two hours in NYC. Blimey

Magazine publisher uses its ad selling know-how online
Creates a network of popular sites to offer to existing and new clients. Good synergy of skills there

Beautiful Zaha Hadid die-cuts on the newsstand
Tony Chambers continues to make Wallpaper* groundbreaking in a non-blinking e-paper kind of way. Can’t wait

Even more underwhelming than I thought…

If this is the future, where’s my jetpack?