The Weak: The AP today moved a feature story on The Week Magazine and it has been picked up by enough newspapers to overload the google hack I use to track magazine industry mentions. Today’s article provides little more than what I said when reviewing it over a year ago. Soon thereafter, I let my subscription lapse.

A husni moment: I’m quoted in the current issue of the business magazine, the Nashville Post . (The magazine is not available online, but you should purchase a copy of it at the newsstand anyway.) On page 52, a short piece appears about the Nashville-published Revolve Magazine with a quote (oops, a typo on the URL of this blog) from me using phrases like “major media buzz.” While I’ve been quoted many times on numerous topics, I must note this is the first “ink” I’ve received as a “pundit” on a topic originated on the rexblog (however, I have been quoted about the blog, itself). I only have to be quoted another 20,000 times and I can catch up with Samir.

Hard & soft: While it is not without precedent for a newsstand magazine to market “split-run” covers (the same issue with different covers) the current issue of National Geographic marks that magazine’s first such experimentation with a split-run strategy, according to min’s (unfortunately, this is a temporary link but perhaps you can find it via a google cache version later). The two covers were drastically (profoundly?) different: one featuring a story on zebras, the other a report claiming there are 29 million people in the world today living in slavery.

More toney news: Is this a theme day? First a link to story about a magazine for rich kids and now one to a story about a magazine for rich adults. Are people playing tricks on me? Are you all pretending it’s the nineties and not telling me? This is a joke, right? Please, tell me it is.

Smash: It doesn’t get much more rexblog-worthy than this: Pete Sampras becomes a magazine owner (sort-of).

Resume builder: “Toney” is one of those adjectives like “venerable” - it shows up exactly where you expect it, as in an article about a senior at a “toney” private school in NYC starting a magazine for students of toney private schools. I run across at least one or two links in local papers around the country each week regarding students doing the same thing in their home towns, however I never link to them; I guess that’s because I have a subconscious bias against un-toney schools.

Anyway, it appears that a special benefit of attending a toney private school in NYC is having a handy source of start-up funding for a magazine. However, am I the only one who sees the connection between the timing of a senior launching a magazine and the college application season?

Up against the Wal: If you’ve been reading the rexblog, you’ll not be surprised with the package of stories in this week’s Advertising Age regarding the power of Wal-mart in the consumer magazine industry. Face it, you could pick any retail product in middle America, from candy bars to dandy bras, and Wal-mart will be the most powerful force in the industry. I’ve already blogged this topic too much, so you’ll just have to wade through for yourself.