Lad mags to blame for society’s ills
“Instant-hit hedonism” isn’t a bad tagline, actually

Time Inc to produce films based on its magazine articles
Expect the headline “Time and motion pictures” to appear somewhere soon

Mygazines saga continues
Exact Editions smells a rat regarding the regularity of what’s been scanned in so far by “users”. No more news from Mr Smith; meanwhile the discussion goes on

Everywhere magazine gets mothballed
Back “before the end of the year“. Disclosure: I have a piece in the latest (last?) edition. I was invited to contribute, which is a little different from the UGC model it espouses; I’ll receive the same payment as all the other contributors, though hopefully the free subscription will be transferred to the still-running JPG

American store pulls Mad magazine for spoof ad
“Embarrassed corporate PR guy” backpedals frantically

David Rowan is to edit Wired UK
With Danger Hammersley as Number Two, it seems

Faber dabbles in print on demand
Rather a lovely way of putting old books back into print. Magazines next?

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for taking the time to write about Mygazines. I did however want to clear up a few misunderstandings about our site.

We will re-iterate we have every intention of working with the industry to fortify the future of magazines and the industry in general. The comparison to Napster with respect to someone driving past you with a radio on and claim that sharing, is not at all our position. We are saying, if you were to take all of the office’s in the world that purchase magazines for the sole purpose of providing entertainment for their clients, is the same as sharing. Furthermore, these offices see different people everyday, so the sharing is constant and consistent and usually includes many back dated issues as well as new. By virtue of the fact that these groups change everyday makes it like a free magazine store.

The most surprising aspect of almost every article is that they are completely missing our inactive revenue model. We have ways of drawing revenue from a number of sources, some more obvious than others. Mygazines is hardly a pirate website with the interest of breaking the industry. Rather, we offer a paradigm shift that is far more fiscally comprehensive than meets the eye and yet easily transitionable by even the biggest publishers.

The true future of the industry lies in the final stages of our site concept. We can easily transition to the final revenue model quickly with the co-operation of the publishers. We cannot however reveal the full concept at this time as we are saving that discussion for the publishing industry directly.

If our goal were to be pirates, we could have made live a number of features, including but not limited to, downloading and printing allowable to visitors and members alike.

Finally, to compare us to other similar sites with the only difference with of us being free, is to disregard the importance of the ‘mygazines’ custom magazine for users, notifications, and our full ability to share on the go, across the globe instantly.

As per our press release: We have every intention of working with the industry to provide not only revenue streams that are vast, but also an answer for the Publishers in general. Our method will increase current revenue, halt and reverse advertising revenue lost to the internet, and overcome the lack of the ability for magazines to stay current.

Mygazines sharing model is a solid one with lots of hidden potential revenue and demographics to appease all.

We can certainly continue to make our case and meet in the courts if need be. That seems to be the intention of the publishers as a whole. But ask yourself, to what end. Even if they are triumphant in this battle, they will lose the war. Apple already has a delivery system for digital reading via both the iphone and now ipod. Microsoft is also working to employ touch sensitivity to its products. Our idea would work as easily for those companies due to our concept. If we were to reveal such to those corporations, they could follow the business model and succeed without the need for working with the publishers at all. That’s all I can say at this point regarding our current revenue potential as well as the future model.

The competitiors have missed the boat. Even the sites that think they have come up with the future online version for magazines, they have not! Publisher friendly or not! There is a final stage missing that can’t be seen unless one has the freedom to think outside of the limitations of the industry as is. In doing so, we have ironically found a way to fortify the industry for all of those involved, increase jobs and magazine selection, while cutting overhead and increasing revenue dramatically for the publishers and industry as a whole.

We cannot elaborate fully as that would be tipping the hand too much. We wish to only divulge that information to the industry directly and sooner rather than later.

An hour later, John added

As well, aren’t we an interesting option for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft as the next major asset in the ads war. We can work with the industry or independently to achieve such. We prefer the former.

I’m very interested to see what John means by “the final stage missing”. I’m guessing he has a subscription model for the community in the pipeline, plus perhaps some form of contextual advertising. Digital publishing channel Texterity abandoned their subscription model recently, has found that in the consumer area, people view online as a companion to print, not a replacement, and so they give publications the option to be available for free. As the Magazine Publishers of America add their lawsuits to the pile, let’s see how this one plays out. I certainly agree with John that litigation is not the answer – even if it does succeed in closing down Mygazines.

Two interesting codas: John’s plans don’t seem to end with Mygazines for grown ups; he also owns the URL “Kidgazines.com” (as well as “urgazines.com”). And his location remains a small mystery. He tells me “Anguilla is our place of origin. This should not be considered as hiding. We are quite upfront about our place of origin on our site.” It is of course extremely easy to set up a company in Anguilla online, and there is no obligation to state detailed information about your company, its finances or its directors there. That could be a coincidence, of course, and Mr Smith may well be based there himself too. The telephone number registered for Mygazines.com, however, is in Romania. The story continues.

UPDATE: Mr Smith sent the same email to other media outlets

A new magazine-based file-sharing website called Mygazines has just launched, flagrantly breaking publishers’ copyright from around the world. Is it a threat, an opportunity or both?

Let’s step back a moment. When Amazon released the Kindle, most people focused on the experience of using physical object, saying how they did or didn’t want to read a book on it, how it was or wasn’t the same as paper, and so on.

What most people overlooked, however, was that Amazon was testing something else at the same time, something probably even more important than being an early seller of commercial e-paper: they were testing a sales model for digital publishing.

The music industry was painfully caught out by the arrival of MP3 players and iPods; by the time Lord Steve of Jobs had finally persuaded most big record labels not to shun digital, millions of their former customers had already turned to illegal file-sharing and copying as the only way to make their music digitally compatible. And hey, once you’ve gone free, why go back?

The music, film and TV industries have already had to change their business strategies to cope with file sharers. And now it’s the turn of books and magazines.

Publishers have apparently been consulting their lawyers over Mygazines, a website dedicated to a community that shares scans of their favourite mags. The site is pretty easy to use, is mostly filled with not-very-good scans, and is a little cryptically located - apparently owned by a Mr John Smith, its address is a PO Box in the Bahamas.

In its launch press release, Mygazines describes sharing magazines via its website as nothing more than picking up mags in “a doctors’ office, law firm, libraries, and hair salons”. It also claims that this is also more environmentally friendly than print, that it eliminates the unfair advantages of conglomerates, and allows users only to see the content “that is of interest to them”.

The press release ends by saying “www.mygazines.com has full intentions to work with the industry, with the aim of fortifying the future of all those either directly or indirectly supported by the production, sales and distribution of magazines.”

Much of that feels disingenuous. Even Napster didn’t claim that sharing music online was just the same as someone driving past you with their radio on. No trees are saved by scanning in a magazine that’s already been printed. There are big problems with the mechanics of physical magazine distribution, but scanning magazines and putting them online won’t change the domination of the big boys - if anything, it’ll consolidate it. And as for “only content that interests users” - like a Tivo to a TV channel, there goes the advertising model. That’s the real reason for publishers to reach for the red legal telephone (after all, giving away magazines for free has never been a problem in the States, as long as the ads are in place).

Mygazines’ intentions to “work with the industry” could be read in one of several different ways. Perhaps it intends a profit-share on ads on the site. Perhaps it will offer branded “channels” like YouTube. Maybe it’s hoping to be taken over by a big publisher. Or it could be hedging its bets between all that and more, building the tech with no clear business model in mind beyond knowing that there’s money in magazines, and hoping that its share will come in from somewhere.

Whether or not the lawyers will shut down this particular Caribbean venture isn’t yet clear. In fact it doesn’t really matter. The situation right now is

a) people generally don’t want to read full magazines online, (though they might read a particular article if it isn’t New Yorker length)

b) with technology, that will change

Reliable, high quality e-paper isn’t here yet, but it’s on its way. What will this mean? Perhaps an increase in product placement – scanning in articles won’t harm that. Maybe, just maybe it’ll also mean that some of the naysayers in the magazine industry will adopt a digital strategy. Compared to newspapers, the vast majority of big magazines are currently being shown up as hopelessly inept at archiving content online, at using digital formats, at providing advertisers with digital solutions or in expanding their brands online. This is an industry wake-up call, and the lawyers won’t save you for long. Either you make your print magazines so special that no kind of e-paper can replace the physical sensation of reading them - or you try to adapt, and quickly, to the digital age before Colour Kindle 3.0 is unleashed. Mygazines is a warning, and not before time.

As for the low quality of scans on Mygazines, as this kind of thing gets bigger, don’t think that your own staff won’t start uploading PDFs to the site before your mag goes to print, possibly for a share of the online ad profits. The time to start embedding your PDFs with invisible digital watermarks is now…

Oh and publishing lawyers: when you’ve finished with Mygazines, you might want to have a go at these:

Books4Share, Magazine Share, E-book Magazine Download, Dleex, and, of course, a thousand and more magazine bittorrents.

Is that the sound of the tide coming in?

(For more, read the discussion at Mashable)

The strange, sad story of door-to-door magazine sales
A story of lies, drugs, death and the nationwide pressure to increase magazine circulations. Top reporting from the Houston Press

Design is pretty, but won’t someone think of the content?
Editorial grandaddy Harold Evans rails against design-led emptyness. He might not enjoy this October’s Belvedere Festival then

All-black Italian Vogue “most wanted issue ever”
10,000-copy reprint for the US market. I have a copy, and don’t really get what the fuss is about. A bonus “fashion shows” supplement provides plenty of skinny white girls for those who like them (as do all the ads)

Time tries the Radiohead subscription model
Unlike Radiohead, people might actually put an amount more than the 44c an issue it otherwise costs (including the $5 Amazon coupon)

Police raids French auto magazine looking for source of leak
Renault gets the boys in

Magazine makes real crop circle
Photoshop reported to be “worried”

And so, despite the current sub-prime number crisis, several luxury magazines are slated to launch or relaunch in the USA over the coming months.

It may be wishful thinking to persuade advertisers than the sun is still shining really, but a recent report commissioned by Elle suggests that the numbers might just make sense. Apparently, 8% of women are completely recession-proof. Our median model recession-ignorer “is 29, affluent with a median household income of $62,000.” Nice for her, as long as her house isn’t being repossessed and she’s still in a job.

At the same presentation (scroll down the above link), Microsoft identified the Luxury Goods Consumers. They apparently engage with luxury brands in six different ways:

• awareness to seek out information
• admiration in seeing luxury brands’ advertised
• exploration in understanding and authenticating the brand
• consideration in researching and choosing the product
• efficiency and superiority of the purchase transaction
• ownership of exclusive offers/information from a higher level of membership.

It’s these six points that are the nub of what luxury magazines aim to do. These kinds of mags are usually filled with puff pieces, uncritical articles, a bought-in celeb interview, plus behind-the-scenes brand stories, and exclusive offers that make shiny advertisers smile – all printed on very heavy glossy paper. Although the content is better or worse in some over others, the real key in this marketplace is to get the distribution right. You want the genuinely rich, not the aspirational wannabes. You want to keep the advertisers happy more than the readers.

Plenty of magazines already exist for this market of course, but where there’s an opportunity, there’ll be a new launch just aching to have a crack at it. So here’s a roundup of four of the newbies hoping to make hay while the rain pours.

6
What is it? A bimonthly luxury magazine for rich Americans with passports.
What does the name mean? The six “passion points” of wealth, style, travel, design, body and health, apparently. These are six key luxury advertiser targets too, strangely enough.
When does it launch? This November, if things are still on track.
Who’s behind it? McMurry, a large American custom magazine publisher that creates magazines for the likes of GlaxoSmithKline and IBM. They’ve hired Catherine Gundersen from UK Harper’s Bazaar to be Editorial Director, and Ralph Groom from O The Oprah Magazine as design director.
How will it be distributed? It will be mailed free to “a proprietary database of 100,000 American households with an average net worth of more than $25 million.” Subscriptions will not be available; you either get it or you don’t.
What’s the quirky digital strategy? Experience6.com, a video / multimedia adjunct to content in the magazine. Also, a members-only online concierge will plan high-end trips for readers, such as a $75,000 trip to a Scottish distillery. Sounds a bit similar to Nota Bene / Quintessentially, except less frequent and without a members fee. Advertising starts at $27,451 for a one-page ad plus web listing.
Chances of success? I’d put it at 50%. A decent team seems to be behind the scenes, but everything will depend on a) how good that database is, b) how good the polywrap is the mag arrives in, to persuade people to open it up, and c) how good those media sales people are. McMurry are big enough to take a loss for a year or two if they have to; how long they’ll keep it up is another matter. Fellow custom publisher John Brown had a go at their own upmarket magazine in the UK a few years ago with Bare, and was stung badly; McMurry will be hoping for more luck. The website aspect is the least convincing; people might leaf through a magazine if it’s on the breakfast/coffee table, but who’ll want a “multimedia experience” if all it is is an enhanced version of some puff content about expensive watchmakers? Also, print designs online don’t really impress as yet.
More? You can download their entire editorial calendar for their first six issues here.

02138
What is it? An independent magazine for Harvard alumni.
What does the name mean? 02138 is the zip code of Harvard University. If you didn’t already know that, you won’t be getting a copy.
When does it launch? It originally appeared at the end of 2006, until earlier this year; the relaunch is due “later this year.”
Who’s behind it? Then-owners Atlantic Media (who publish The Atlantic Monthly), along with other investors, never managed to make a profit from from the magazine. In May this year, they sold up to Manhattan Media, who mostly publish community magazines and newspapers in New York, including the inauspiciously named Chelsea Clinton News. Manhattan gained an early PR coup for the mag by hiring the hot redesigner of the moment Luke Hayman to touch up the visuals, with, of all people, King George Lois of Esquireland to do their first cover (no, he’s not dead). The publisher is former Maxim group publisher and Giant founder Jamie Hooper. Basically, they’re spending some big bucks here (Roger Black reckons $120,000 just for the designers). The idea is to then roll out seven other unofficial alumni magazines for the entire Ivy League.
How will it be distributed? A harvard.edu email address will do nicely.
What’s the quirky digital strategy? A “social networking site” for alumni, with special events organised for members. As with all new social network sites, if you already use them, you’re elsewhere; if you haven’t started yet, you won’t start here. They should just use existing web tools, and forget about online advertising for now, as it’s not yet scalable, and building the site could get very expensive very quickly.
Chances of success? 30% (with a 10% bonus on offer if they put the Facebook ambitions on hold). Meantime, judging by MM’s current publications, they’ll need to get a whole new class of advertiser, and fast (though those old boy-filled Rolodex should help). At least the magazine has in the past gained some big name interviewees; it’s entirely possible that this has nothing to do with Harvard old boys mistakenly thinking it’s an official university publication.

Manhattan
What is it? A luxury lifestyle quarterly for affluent New Yorkers.
What does the name mean? The word “Manhattan” has been translated as “island of many hills” from the Lenape language. The Encyclopedia of New York City offers other derivations, including from the Munsee dialect of Lenape: manahachtanienk (”place of general inebriation”), manahatouh (”place where timber is procured for bows and arrows”), or menatay (”island”).
When does it launch? September.
Who’s behind it? Modern Luxury Media, a company that already publishers 12 other luxury city titles in the USA. The launch team comes from within the company. The magazines’ content is shared across the network, with the same fashion shoots and celeb interviews in each. A local editor adds in events and real estate information for the relevant location. A different design on each cover makes them look more original than they actually are at closer inspection.
How will it be distributed? 35,000 will be direct-mailed; 20,000 will be sold on the newsstand. The rest will probably end up in hotels, if similar European magazines are anything to go by.
What’s the quirky digital strategy? In order to boost interest, provide content and give advertisers a digital option, Modern Luxury recently acquired luxury emailers JuliB.
Chances of success? 85%. Costs will be high to enter New York, not to mention the competition and the obligatory Hamptons launch party; but the rest of the network seems to be doing well. It’ll impress advertisers, even if it ends up as a loss leader.
More? See their current output in digiformat over at their website.

wsj.
What is it? A quarterly spin off / supplement for selected readers of the Wall Street Journal, and for people who like expensive trinkets, like hedge funds.
What does the name mean? Wussuj is the name of Rupert M’s favourite wombat. The magazine’s working title was “Pursuits”, mercifully ditched in February.
When does it launch? 6th September.
Who’s behind it? Uncle Rupert. Introducing a luxury magazine was known to be a key part of his strategy in buying the Wall Street Journal, despite the failure of News Magazines, News Corp’s short-lived British magazine company. The launch of The Times of London’s quarterly supplement Luxx was thought by many to be a dry run for the American version, a rumour promptly confirmed by the poaching of Luxx’s editor, Tina Gaudoin, to take charge of wsj..
How will it be distributed? Not as a straightforward supplement, if this report is to be believed. Instead, it’s only for those subscribers who earn more than $300,000 (honestly, who subscribes to the Journal and earns less than that??), plus Asian and European readers, and a small number of newsstands.
What’s the quirky digital strategy? If they’re smart, there won’t be anything more than a static PDF Media Kit. The brand’s big enough on its own.
Chances of success? 99%. This one has the backing of the big man.

Photo by Darkmatter

In the book We Love Magazines, I wrote in 2006: “Advances in digital paper and low-cost throwaway screens suggest that the first ever animated front cover isn’t far away. The newsstand may yet prove even more attention-grabbing.”

And here we are, with Esquire about to publish a cover that the magazine’s Editor in Chief, David Granger hopes “will be in the Smithsonian [Museum]” – a flashing E-ink cover proclaiming “The 21st Century Begins Now!”

On the one hand, Granger’s assertion that “Magazines have basically looked the same for 150 years” is completely wrong, given how far design, paper, printing technology have come even in the last 15 years. On the other hand, he’s absolutely right. Paper is static, and always has been. The wo/man on the street almost certainly won’t be consciously aware of the differences between 120gsm substrate gloss and 80gsm recycled cream, between sans serif and foil-blocked die cuts, unless you tie them down and force feed them focus-group-standard coffee and cake until they say something intelligent. But show them a newsstand that blinks, and they’ll remember it for years.

However, when you look at the details, you realise that this is still just one small step for mags. Firstly, the batteries and displays have been put together in China, then shipped to Texas, where they were sent down to Mexico to be inserted by hand, then shipped in refrigerated lorries to the US. So the 21st Century actually began a few months ago, but we’ve had to wait for it to be put together using what Granger describes as “a 19th-century manufacturing process”. Don’t expect that to change any time soon – which means this is strictly mainstream, big advertiser, non-breaking news territory. The exorbitant costs involved seem to have been spread between Hearst Corp and Ford, whose animated ad will be on the inside cover.

Secondly, don’t expect too much technologically. The E-ink display (which Esquire has an exclusivity on until 2009, presumably not because they’ll do it again this year, but so that they’re still being talked about for a while) is apparently a lower-powered version of the Vizplex, which offers eight greyscales. It’s the same one used in the Kindle, but with a smaller, 90-day power supply. In other words, if the Kindle is anything to go by, it’ll be ok for static text, but maybe not for any animation more sophisticated than On/Off.

Thirdly, less than one in seven Esquire covers will actually move. Of their 720,000 circulation, only 100,000 will flicker, and then only for 90 days. Subscribers miss out on their moment of history, unless they can grab a copy, and so, if I guess rightly, will most of the newsstand outside of New York. This is about the hype and the story, so they’ll put the covers where they matter most.

And finally, the real shame in my opinion: it’s being done by American Esquire, a magazine that has otherwise celebrated its 75th anniversary by laughing at its legacy and generally showing a lack of imagination in most of its recent editorial treatments (with the occasional honorable exception). Great brand, not going through a great phase at the moment.

For all the above-mentioned technological limitations, this is still a giant step for magazine kind, hinting towards the inevitable animated everywheres of Blade Runner and Minority Report. Sure, the tech is primitive, but seeing it on the newsstand rather than at trade shows will undoubtedly help increase the speed of technological advances. My prediction? Give it three to five years, and we’ll have basic moving colour.

Hearst has invested a lot in being the first out there. This will be the only animated cover on the newsstand, the first ever around the world. It could say anything at all, and still stand out. It’s a great opportunity for some wit, some thought. Instead, the cover line (”The 21st Century Begins Now!”) is a pretty banal, predictable magazine shout for something that’s supposed to go down in history.

People will stop, look, probably buy this anyway. If Esquire truly believes it is speaking to future generations in the Smithsonian, the kids of tomorrow will not be impressed. The first words ever spoken on film, in The Jazz Singer, were famously “You ain’t heard nothing yet.” Now that’s an opening.

(So what flashing sentence would I choose for this momentous magazine milestone? I’ve just spent 30 seconds thinking about it, and come up with “This is the future calling. Please pick up.” Feel free to suggest yours below, and expect Conde Nast to do a deal with, say, Nemoptic very soon.)

How a magazine page is designed
Video of putting together a page for the Royal Academy magazine, designed by Studio8. ‘Light Fantastic’ was a much better headline, I reckon (via MagCulture)

Wallpaper* uses clever ink for The Secret Elite edition
Brilliant. But why subscribers only? (and did they subconsciously copy Wire for the main image?)

Rolling Stone gives away magazines with t-shirts
It’s all about the ad numbers. Start of a trend?

London Magtastic on 12th July
Gathering of independent, London-focused magazines; nothing to do with me

Archives don’t need to pay contributors again
Potentially big ruling in the USA. Thank goodness for common sense

Fashion-ation reads fashion magazines
So you don’t have to

(Plenty to catch up on – a few weeks ago, I married my lovely partner and moved to the USA, hence the pause. Onwards!)

Time Out Beijing closed by the Chinese government
Officials get pre-Olympic jitters. Read a recent copy here

Esquire puts celebs in a large box to celebrate anniversary
Pretentiousness contest ensues; magazine still hasn’t decided what to do with the result

New French magazine mixes videogames with fashion
Looking forward to seeing a copy (via Jean Snow). Not to be mistaken with magazines making online games for readers

Former Sleazenation ed to make ethical magazine for Christian Aid
The first phase is already online

Conde Nast finally admits to Wired UK
Technology may know no borders, but its reporting isn’t. For an amusing read, see what happened the first time around (pre-Nast)

Print-on-demand isn’t aimed at designers
Boico responds to my previous post. Printcasting seems to prove his point

New magazine features guest commenter throughout
Described by one site as “like a marked up PDF”. I’ve seen magazines be meta-commented before, but not quite like this; fun

How Domus was redesigned
Detailed look behind the curtain (via MagCulture)

Dutch DIY store creates female-aimed customer mag
Companion piece for Woodworking for Women, perhaps

Unconventional wedding magazine tries the UGC route
Be still my sceptic heart

Free counter-culture mag asks readers for $20,000
And gets it. I rather like Arthur, glad to see it keep the wolves away for another month

UPDATE: There’s an interview with MagCloud’s creators here.

Paper is a strange beast. Environmentally suspect, over time it yellows, turns brittle, starts to smell a bit musty. The colours never shine as well as they do on the screen, it tears, it creases, it’s heavy to store and rapidly decreases in value. And it’s still a vital part of our culture.

One of the reasons that paper endures, despite the naysaying of digivangelists, is that printing technology has continued to evolve alongside the rise of the virtual. Most of these changes aren’t noticeable to the majority of end consumers – glossier recycled paper, soft proofing, better colour management. Others are quite clearly advances that I can explain to my mother in one sentence, and she’ll understand why that’s clever.

Such as: “Anyone can make their own magazines for free.” Enter MagCloud, a new print-on-demand website dedicated to magazines.

It works like this: you upload a PDF of your magazine to the MagCloud website. You are then told a minimum price per copy that it can be sold it, to cover their production costs. You set a sale price above that, and make it available on the website. MagCloud processes the orders, deals with the payments, sends you your margin, and then prints out a single copy of the magazine and mails it to the customer. You have zero fixed costs, and don’t have boxes and boxes of unsold mags in your garage. Everyone’s a winner. Ish.

Print on demand (POD) pitched directly to public hobbyists isn’t anything very new. I wrote about it in The Guardian back in 2004, the same year that JPG Magazine first appeared on sale at Print-on-demanders Lulu.com. (Disclosure: I won the Lulu Blooker Prize for Fiction last year for a POD book of my own; I’ve never done any work for them or MagCloud.) The afore-mentioned Everywhere is printed on demand for the number of subscribers of each issue, Boico’s Zine was an interesting POD experiment last year.

What’s different this time is:

• MagCloud is dedicated solely to magazines (Lulu.com describes its service as “brochures”)
• MagCloud is a creation of Hewlett Packard, who make the Indigo, one of the most popular POD printers

What’s the point of MagCloud? It’s a creation of HP’s research labs, so is one of their more ‘out there’ inventions, and it’s been worked on by Derek Powazek, founder of the afore-mentioned JPG. He describes it on his blog as both “in beta” and “a pilot”. It’s quite possible that this is more about PR and image building for HP machines than a genuine service with its own business plan. (It wouldn’t be the first time for HP.) It’s also possible that this is part of a bigger strategy of becoming a company that prints and delivers personalised content directly to customers. (That wouldn’t be the first time either.)

Whatever HP’s motives, one thing is clear: MagCloud is currently far too expensive to make much of an impact. $4.00 for 20 pages, or around $9 for 44 pages just isn’t good enough for many readers beyond friends and family. But imagine if this service becomes much more affordable, as cheap as or cheaper than the newsstand. And imagine if readers were allowed to select their content. And imagine if big publishers started using it. Then what?

First, the problems of the cost. Some ideas on how it could be made cheaper:

- ancillary services. As well as a free PDF option, Lulu also sells extras, such as editor evaluations and listings on Amazon. MagCloud could also offer Amazon sales/other distribution, unusual formats, plus closer attention by a print professional, special printing effects, etc. These would cost significantly more – and the profit would partly go in lowering the base price
- advertising. You categorise the magazines, and sell the ad space in bulk. Magazine makers can opt to include advertising for a reduced price. Also people could buy advertising for their POD magazine in someone else’s (or exchange it). Inserts.
- offer packs of four magazines together, bound up as one. Back issues or similarly themed magazines could work.

Next, how could this technology be used for interesting ends?

- tie-ins, such as with Getty Images, Shelf Made, Issuu, Loot, local press. Turn magazines into paper backups of Flickr, Facebook walls, forums, bookmarked webpages, iCal and other information for a holiday. Use it to make long-dead magazines available again. 1980s copies of The Face. A complete set of Brodovitch’s Harper’s Bazaar. Sure, it’s not going to be exactly the same as the original, but what is? It could be an interesting and potentially exciting niche opportunity for publishers to connect archives with availability, without losing the physical sensation of print
- create associations with Universities, schools, conferences, museums, Wikipedia, Project Gutenburg and other groups where personalised / selected content for individual copies could be a great feature
- get graphic design students to pair up with people who have stories they want to tell editorially, and then create strange, wonderful magazines

And if the big licensing issues could be overcome?

This is answered in a piece I wrote in the Colophound magazine we published last year, reprinted below. MagCloud may be turn out to be little more than a publicity stunt, or an experiment gone wrong, or aimed only at bedroom magazine makers with the result being as numbing as most of the books on Lulu. But it certainly got me thinking.

A magazine from 2027

This magazine is a strange beast. The cover, it says, has been created by the winner of this year’s Turner Prize, but this isn’t an art magazine. Instead, the cover is more of a free gift for subscribers, because the content inside has been compiled to the individual formula of the person who this is for, in this case a woman in her early 20s.

According to an accompanied sheet of figures about the industry, less than 10% of readers now buy magazines that are 100% any single brand; instead, the rule of thirds is the main driving factor. The most common title subscribed to is Facemag, created by the makers of Facebook to feature news and photographs from your friends and colleagues. This particular copy’s lead Facemag story is a hen party, with a selection of photos by some of the people who attended. There’s also a couple of short feature stories that have been lifted from blogposts by friends of the subscriber, and some news-in-brief, single paragraph updates.

Also in this issue is 80 pages from Vogue – the latest top photoshoot and a summary of the catwalk fashions. The small print inside tells me that the following week will include selected content from Harpers, the week after that from Wallpaper* – and that more content can be purchased via the reader’s online profile. The final third seems to be taken from news from local newspapers and websites - the top stories from particular cities where the reader has probably lived or maybe is just interested in.

An ad on the inside back page talks of a new service starting this month – 20 pages of specially curated content for the price of 10. This content is supposed to open the magazine, and will be chosen, edited and designed by former big names in the magazine industry, including editors of the New Yorker and the designer of Creative Review; I can visit each of their profiles online to see who they are. Strange and a little disjointed as this new magazine world is, it’s something of a relief for me to see that the editor still has a job, albeit as a personal brand that even competes with the magazines themselves.

Newspaper prototype is basically a magazine
Is it a newspaper or a newsmagazine?

New York Review of Magazines returns
Great to have it back. Thoughtful student-written features on the industry in the States, plus reviews

Colophon at 8 Festival in Vienna
With special magazine lounge. Sorry to miss it

Five ways to spot a faked photo
Warning: gets quite technical. Via Mediabistro