Magazine 2.0

As we all become more environmentally conscientious, the magazine industry is scrambling to find more eco-friendly alternatives without spending a fortune. The digital world is a new but rapidly growing trend amongst magazine publications across the country. The hybrid of digital and print magazines for companies have allowed them to provide an enhanced experience for their readers. As the business and entertainment world continue to move in the digital direction, applying online features like the digital magazine is one technology that will continue to grow.
Magazines like 7x7, Men’s Health, Spin, and Elle Decor have already jumped on the digital band wagon. All four magazines offer digital versions of their publication, exact replicas of the printed magazine in an interactive version. This has enabled them to expand their circulation and to reach more people in more areas. Through the supplementary digital magazine, all three publications have boosted readership and ad sales. By providing a digital application magazine can provide a user-friendly design that offers a whole new level of entertainment. Digital vendors like Zmag and Zendition have noticed an increase in readership for their clients who have hired them. “[Digital magazines] enables companies to very easily add interactive features, analyze what works, and constantly improve the way they present content,” said Zmags CEO Jens Kartsoft. Through multimedia ads and content, digital magazines have also helped publications to promote their brand, not solely their print magazine.
Digital magazines are also modifying the advertisement industry as well. With interactive magazines, companies may now expand their accessibility to their audience. Links to their websites or directing them to buy a specific product are now available through the digital versions of magazines. The publishers also benefit from this feature as they have more leverage in negotiation by offering features to potential advertisers that not many other magazines have. In providing a digital version of their magazine, publishers and advertisers are ensured that their publication is accessible from virtually anywhere in the world.
As we continue to see magazine companies add digital components for their publications, multimedia technology will also continue to evolve. With all that is possible in the digital age, magazines will be able to be a part of a constant evolution of new technologies. As the print industry attempts to minimize cost and production, digital magazines provide a world of opportunities in an enhanced and efficient way.

The Significant of Paper

As magazines evolve with today’s media trends, the necessity for using paper in the future tends to dwindle. When you ask someone what they think what will happen to paper in the future you frequently get the same response “paper will no longer be in existence because digital technology will overtake.” So, how significant is the paper for the publication industry? Can we live without paper if we continue to live in a digital technology world? Today you have books, magazines, and documents all available in digital media. On the other hand, you have some industries that are anti-digital and are still using paper. Clearly paper has been a significant invention and has been a great contribution for publishing industry. And moving on to digital and leaving paper behind will have a great impact on the way we advertise, how we profit and of course, our content.

When you look through the pages on a print magazine you observe many advertisements. Some you scratch and sniff, some have di-cuts as part of their advertisement, and others you lift to see underneath. These previous examples are the many wonderful flexible things how you are able to control and use paper. In comparison, you have SPIN magazine that has uploaded their magazine online, where you could link to your advertisement’s websites and start shopping. But is that a better experience than print advertisements? Of course both have their disadvantages and advantages.

Economically, digital is cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Today print production prices are increasing and not everyone uses recyclable paper. After all, the world surely cannot afford to keep loosing trees at the rate it’s going.

Reading content on paper is different from reading content on digital. One example could be the length of the content; you have more freedom to extend your content on paper than what you do on digital. Another example is the type of content; you feel more obligated to use content that is easy to the eye on screen than when you are reading on paper.

These previous examples are few of the disadvantages and advantages of how paper is significant. Whether, you would like to believe it or not paper does make a difference. So, are we ready to let paper die out?

Is There Really 101 New Tricks To A Great Sex That No ONE Knows About?

Bitch: A Success Story

It’s a tough world out there for an indie magazine. Print is dying, the economy is getting worse and worse, everything is going corporate. Things may be fine for Vogue and Newsweek, but independent magazines are dropping like flies; last year, the popular indie mag Punk Planet closed its doors. Just last week, it looked like Bitch Magazine, the smart, fun, non-profit feminist pop-culture magazine, was going to follow them. As a non-profit, Bitch depends heavily on reader donations, and they needed to raise $40,000 by October 15 in order to print their next issue- not an easy feat. But publisher Debbie Rasmussen and editorial director Andi Zeisler reached out to readers. A traditional fundraising “thermometer”, in the shape of a wiener dog (get it?), was placed at the top of the Bitch website. They shot a video asking for donations, in which they explain how serious the situation is, but also remain upbeat, making jokes about “helping our wiener grow”. “Wiener people gonna realize that independent magazines need money?” asks Zeisler in the video, causing Rasmussen to burst into laughter.

And it worked. The story quickly made the rounds on the blogosphere. The community responded, and in just three short days, Bitch’s readers had donated $40,000. At last count they’ve reached $55,000- and this during an economic recession.

The whole process has resulted in the operations of the magazine becoming much more transparent to readers. The last issue of the magazine didn’t sell as well as expected, which created the crisis. “Bitch operates without any financial cushion,” says founder Lisa Jervis in a comment on the original “Save Bitch” blog post. “We have always been a hand-to-mouth shoestring organization, making do and doing the best we can with scarce resources.” Many readers who donated expressed concern that there would have to be an emergency fundraiser before each issue to keep the magazine going; Rasmussen responded that as a non-profit, they will always rely on reader donations– “Just, ideally, in a less dramatic way.” Directors and editors have shared their ideas for a multimedia Bitch with readers, and in return readers have provided their critique, feedback, and even some ideas of their own.

Since its first issue, Bitch has been beating the odds with great journalism and a strong community. Only 10% of magazines continue to publish past their first 10 years; Bitch is currently in year 13. This recent fundraising feat just goes to show that readers still need this magazine, and are willing to donate their money to help it out. Rasmussen called the overwhelming reader response "honoring and humbling", but if anything, the fact that Bitch could raise $40,000 in three days is a testament to the quality of the magazine and its importance to readers. In such difficult times, it's inspiring to hear a story like Bitch's.

A Paper Drop in the Global Bucket

Digging into the question of sustainable magazine publishing practices, I stumbled across some very excited progress in the use of sustainable paper productions for magazines. For the past 10 years magazines have merely talked about making the change or starting to think about sustainability, but in the past year with rising pressure, there have been many new advances. One can only wonder, is it too little too late in the fight?
We have always been mildly content with the baby steps that magazines have taken in using sustainable methods in printing, but in reading some recent mission statements from high profile magazines, the heat is on. Once I loooked at Time, Inc.’s sustainability report I was excited to learn that they are taking some real efforts to change their 127 publications to a more positive image and effect. There is no doubt that the recent shift in global eco-concerns have made the magazines sweat on whether or not they can afford to sustain themselves in an eco-threatened market.
For many years magazines have gotten away with only publishing a “green” issue about once a year, but some have missed the goal of the whole agenda. If gigantic magazines are unable to commit to publishing just one green issue a year, then they are not setting a good reputation that they will pay for it in the long run. Although the green issues have not been selling that well, they might have to make the sacrifice for the sake of the environment not just a fleeting trend. However as Jeff Bercovici points out in several articles that magazine ethos and practices are in fact an oxymoron. Vanity Fair within the past couple of years have put out journalistic hard hitting “green issues” but did not even put it on recycled paper. Also by putting Madonna on the cover trivializes the real images that should be at the forefront of global warming and greenhouse emissions. Without any real commitment to the simple cut down to paper used, is there any way to take this issue seriously. According to Co-op America there are every increasing magazine that do make the jump, and not just for one issue but make the commitment.
With all the heat on publishers the pressure on advertisers have become very realistic, but not good enough. With the Aveda Corporation going green meant more than paper, when in 2003-04 Aveda established an environmental media strategy that meant that their advertisers had to fill out a survey about their own environmental practices. If more publishers were to follow suit there would be an evolution in the way we view eco-friendly practices. It would not be for the few, but rather for the masses.
Also the introduction last year to ReMix, Recycling Magazines is Excellent, made a mockery of magazines own responsibility. All the information is focused on the consumer to just recycle their magazines. This however falls short when the thousands of magazines in production every day are unable to use recycled paper. I will admit that if everyone recycled more, hence creating more efficient recycling practices; however beneficial more education is to recycling, it is not just the consumer that needs to think about these issues.
With all of this considered there is the influence of technology and the Internet that has helped in the production, however the age of Internet users is still fairly young. If magazine publishers can commit to using green paper and mission statement that affects advertisers, consumers and the issues, then a wider range of ages will have no choice but to pay attention to the stand they are making.
With many other magazines pulling through on the challenge, Time, Inc for example, there is no reason for other major players to get left in the trash bin. If they do, it may be the antiquity of paper production and the gradual end of outdated production. More pressure needs to be put on the publishers themselves:
And if not now, then when?

Third World Chic

Vogue India recently received a lot of attention in the media, however probably not the kind the year old magazine was looking for. The magazine received a lot of flack for displaying designer bags and clothes—a Hermes handbag and a Burberry umbrella, among other items—on the poorest of India. One photo included a poor Indian woman carrying a baby wearing a hundred dollar Fendi bib; while the average person in India earns only 500 dollars each year, according to a Stanford study.

Photographers and editors alike made sure that these pictures weren’t shot in an air-conditioned studio, they were in a rural, dire background, (an unsuspecting eye might not even spot that the models were wearing the designer goods). It seems that the sad looking background and modest looking “models” were just a prop to make sure the designer items stood out and looked good.


Equally controversial is the fact that the photo “models” weren’t even named, while the designer swag was specifically identified.


“Lighten up,” editor in chief of Vogue India Priya Tanna said in a telephone interview to the New York Times. “Vogue is about realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” she said. But is using some of India’s poorest as props to designer goods in good taste? And the last time I checked the kind of fashion that Vogue deals in is still a privilege of the rich.

“Earlier this summer clothes designed by India's poorest and most downtrodden women - 'night-soil carriers' from the country's untouchable caste - were modeled on a New York catwalk”, said Pamela Timms a writer for The Independent. So it seems this ‘Third World Chic’ might become a trend.

Pavan K Varma, former diplomat and author of 'The Great Indian Middle Class, noted that right now “money is fashionable” in India. And Vogue India is, no doubt, an extension of that mentality. But is hyper-consumerism and high end baby bibs, that they’ll never be able to afford, what India needs?

Random Appreciation: When Content Dictates Format

When we conceive of a typical arts magazine, we imagine it as a source of art-related news, complete with reviews, gallery information and articles concerned with the reporting and discussion of the arts. This format reflects the classic understanding of what the modern magazine is designed to accomplish: to educate and offer vicarious experience.

But what happens when the arts magazine becomes the gallery and the artist becomes the journalist? When the reader can be the writer and illustrations become the basis for content, instead of the other way around?

The result is an eloquently bound platform for creative expression.  An avant-garde journal inspired by unsystematic presentation fittingly titled Dossier, which is French for “file”.

In the words of the editors and founders, Skye Parrott and Katherine Krause, the publication is “an open forum in which to bring together fashion, art, literature, photography, design and food.”

This Brooklyn based, bi-annual magazine issued its first edition this past spring, launching a comprehensive website along side it.  And according to Dossierjournal.com, the print version is now distributed to over 22 countries.  

Skye says she and Katherine, who have been friends since they were fourteen, dreamt up the idea a long time ago but have only just brought it to life. Upon assembling a faction of artistically diverse people, hand-picked from an already established group of friends, and friends of friends, the editors gave full artistic freedom to the contributors. A rare privilege in the industry, but one that makes for interesting content. 

Some might argue that such creative autonomy could potentially lead to a muddled compilation of content devoid of direction. Samir Husni of mr.magazine.com, although gives praise, takes a similar stance when he says in his review of the magazine that:

“While articles and pictures provide for great journalism, the thread uniting all of the content isn't there. This is expected for the first issue. I hope that Dossier will find a better way to organize their files, because it is definitely a filing cabinet to keep.”

But isn’t what gives the journal artistic merit the very fact that it promotes the randomness, the freewheeling nature of art in itself? Where the goal is to break free of the limitations of mainstream journalism, Dossier inspires artists to do what they do best, be unconventional. Isn’t that what most modern art is about in the first place? 

Skye told me over the phone that the magazine’s purpose is to provide “real fashion with high-end writing,” solid literary content with interesting visuals. Instead of just reviewing the arts, they seek to involve the arts, showcase them.    

We are in an age when the definition of a journalist has been blurred and is constantly shifting, when more and more; the general public demands a voice in the media. The natural progression is to embrace this interaction. Dossier welcomes this concept by encouraging people to participate in their creative process. But beyond that, the magazine embodies a sense of community support, offering up its pages to the everyday artist, the up-and-comer and well as to the practiced. And not just for the photographer or the painter, but the poet, the designer, musician, the creative writer. In essence, Dossier is a sanctuary for quality art that might otherwise not have a home.