Have fun.

Not easy as ABC: “There’s no Plan B at the moment,” says the publisher of Tall Magazine in an article in the Oakland Tribune. That’s not true. I suggested a Plan B last August when I first blogged this start-up.

The consumer magazine about giving update: Perhaps fearful of the term vaporzine, a start-up magazine I blogged in Janurary has issued a press release that is similar to their first release. The first one, however, says they will launch in March and since today marks the end of that month, their new press release announces they are launching in April. However, they still say they are “the first” magazine of their kind, which, I tried to explain in a later post, is not so. But, hey, first, last, whatever, I hope they do good. At least they’re not trying to replace Martha or launching another shopping magazine for men.

Southern exposure: I’m attempting to e-mail this post to the rexblog as the news of a recall of Southern Living due to a defective recipe is too hot (sorry) to wait until finding wi-fi. I think SL should have issued a press release expressing shock that readers didn’t recognize that the exploding rolls (made from a mixture Cook’s Illustrated says is “like napalm”) were obviously an April Fools Day prank. (Note to my B’ham friends: Just kidding.)

Later (back home): Wow. My e-mail post from my Treo worked. Although my thumb typing still leaves something to be desired.

New, old friend: At dinner last night, I told Jeff Jarvis a story from a decade or so ago about how bizarre (in some ways) it was when I met for the first time “in person” some people I had come to know via an interactive listserv. My “offline” experiences with fellow bloggers, however, have all been delightful. Reading each-other’s blog for months before meeting causes the first conversation to have an inverse-shape to the typical first conversation - jumping straight to the hard questions. I quizzed Jeff (rudely, perhaps) about some the more personal, emotional experiences he’s blogged about right off the bat and waited until much later to ask those normal early questions like, “where’d you go to school?”

It will come as no surprise to anyone who reads his blog, Jeff Jarvis is a delightful, engaging individual. While our vocations mean we know dozens of the same people and have followed lots of the same news in the magazine publishing industry, I doubt we would have ever crossed paths without our weblogs. And I wouldn’t have such a great new, old friend. (Later: What he said.)

Blog connection: When I realized a presentation I was making at a seminar at Northwestern University was at the the same time blog-star Jeff Jarvis was here for a project with the Medill School of Journalism, we agreed that dinner tonight was predestined. (Presbyterian humor?) Anyway, Jeff asked readers of BuzzMachine for restaurant suggestions, and their response (see comments) is making me hungry.

How could they leave? The Nashville City Paper reports that after 30 years, Amusement Business Magazine is “pulling out of” Nashville, the magazine center of the universe, and moving its headquarters to, get this, LA. According to the the paper, the VNU-owned b-to-b publication covering “the outdoor entertainment industry, including carnivals, fairs and amusement parks,” published “about 44″ issues last year. (About?) It is is being folded into the Film and Performing Arts Group, which also publishes The Hollywood Reporter, SHOOT, and BackStage magazines. (As luck would have it, I’m at Northwestern University today to lead a seminar session being attended by some publishers associated with this story who I’m obviously going to have to educate about Nashville being center of the magazine universe.)

Wal-You Magazine: Adage.com is reporting “the long-expected announcement of Time Inc. giving the green light to its Wal-Mart project came this morning, as Time Inc. Chairman-CEO Ann Moore and Editor in Chief Norm Pearlstine sent out an internal memo laying out the monthly’s name, All You.”

Quote:

All You will be a newsstand-only title distributed exclusively through Wal-Mart stores. Its initial rate base — or guaranteed circulation for advertisers — will be 500,000. It will compete against lower-priced women’s service titles, such as Bauer Publishing’s Women’s Worldand First for Women. Those titles typically sell at price points of $1.99.

“I’m so pleased to launch a magazine that speaks directly to this reader. She’s self-reliant and down-to-earth with realistic expectations,” Ms. Moore said in a released statement.

All You will cover topics ranging from home repair to interpersonal relationships, the common thread being “real-life, practical solutions,” Ms. Moore said.

(Rexblog flashbacks: June 13, 2003; February 9, 2004.)

Entrepreneur envy: Really, there’s no reason to hate a guy who comes up with a way to make yet another fortune by doing something (registration required, etc.) that is brilliant in its simplistic obviousness. However, the real news in this story about Jeffrey Arnold and Lidrock is buried deep within it: His company’s factory, in effect, is returning “outsourced” foreign manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Now, those low-cost workers in another country are out of work while 100% American red-white-and-blue robots are fully employed.

Obvious: A study conducted by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) reveals that 18-34 year olds have embraced the Web in a big way. (Source: MediaPost)

Giant vaporzine publicity warning: Whenever an “independently financed” vaporzine gets previewed by David Carr in the NY Times, I cringe at the thought of the folks behind it confusing that publicity with success. Of course, this is something I’ve said before vociferously. So I’m cringing because in Monday’s Times, Carr reports (registration required, etc.) that a Maxim alum is starting an Entertainment Weekly/Rolling Stone-type magazine aimed at men in their 20s and 30s. The magazine is backed by an initial investment of $200,000 from venture capitalist Morton Meyerson, former CEO of EDS (oh, did we mention he was father-in-law of the founder, another theme here at the rexblog?). I will stop here as the last time I suggested something like this was akin to viewing a train wreck in slow motion, the founding publisher got really ticked off at me. Hey, I just want us all to get along. By the way, I am very impressed that the magazine editors were able to get international male model, Derek Zoolander, to appear on the cover of the vaporzine’s prototype (left).

Dick Clarke’s American Grandstanding & Profiteering update: My rant the other day about Richard Clarke’s nationally televised apologetic marketing ploy challenged him to add substance to his self-serving symbolism by contributing his entire proceeds from sales of his book to appropriate foundations or funds releated to those victims he emotionally claimed that he had failed. As I pointed out, the citizens of the U.S. and its government have displayed their commitment to the memories of those victims by the outpouring of donations, the waging of a worldwide war, the deaths of hundreds of young military heroes and billions of dollars of tax dollars committed to defending ourselves from such future lapses like those Clarke has apologized for (and which were planned while he was security czar).

The pressure on Clarke to make his restitutional actions match his self-serving apologies are apparently building. In today’s NY Post, over 30 family members of victims signed an op-ed piece that includes the following thoughts that parallel my earlier comments:

Nonetheless, the notion of profiteering from anything associated with 9/11 is particularly offensive to all of us. We find Mr. Clarke’s actions all the more offensive especially considering the fact that there was always a high possibility that the 9/11 Commission could be used for political gain, especially now, with the presidential election less than eight months away. Surely, Mr. Clarke knew this. Yet he decided to risk the actual and perceived impartiality of this important process to maximize book sales. As family and friends of those killed on 9/11, we believe it inappropriate for Mr. Clarke to profit from and politicize 9/11, and further divide America, by his testimony before the 9/11 Commission.

Clarke apparently is feeling the heat. Reacting to the charges that he is profiteering from the terrorist attacks, Clarke said today on NBC’s Meet the Press that he planned to donate a “substantial” but unspecified portion of its sales to the attacks’ survivors and to the widows and children of military personnel who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Until Clarke matches the type of commitment the nation has made to correct any lapses the government had (during Clarke’s watch) in protecting those victims by donating ALL his royalties, it seems clear that the “profiteering” label is more than appropriate to describe what he is doing.

And speaking of profiteering, tonight Matt Drudge is saying that Clarke’s portion of the proceeds from the book will soon cross the $1 million mark.

Make your apologies real, Mr. Clarke. Stop your profiteering.

Name brands: Knowledge@Wharton has an interesting (yet by-line less) piece on the issues related to companies that are branded with the names of their founders. (Personal disclosure obvious.) While interesting, after reading it, I’ve decided it merely makes the obvious point that companies inevitably are judged by the quality of their products and services. After a brief period of time in which clients and consumers will judge a product by its name, in the long-run, consumers are clever enough to figure out that the person “Martha Stewart” and the brand “Martha Stewart” are not the same. (Even if pundits haven’t figured it out.) (via CNET.)

Marthette vultures update: In one of my first Marthette vultures updates linking to cliched “who will be the next Martha?” stories, I predicted someone would develop a Marthette vulture reality-show. Sure enough, someone has, reports Variety. CBS has ordered up ten episodes of an untitled talent competion designed to yield a “Martha-esque” domestic superstar.

Quote:

Contestants will live together and compete in a series of challenges designed to test their skills at party planning, cooking, decorating and other such hallmarks of domesticity. “You might have to throw a dinner party –but then find out we’ve cut off the power,” he said.

Here’s how they could make the show really entertaining. At the end of the tenth episode, tell the winner that instead of becoming a domestic diva, there is a surprise ending: She has to go to prison for six months. (Previous “Marthette vultures updates” can be found here and here and here and here and here and here.)

Amazing: About seven years ago, I got a letter in the mail (the postal service delivered kind), from a person who read an irrate letter I had sent to the editor of Folio: Magazine. My letter, as I recall, was a rant against some “expert” who predicted the demise of custom published magazines by the following year. The person who sent me the letter, Simon Kelly, was seeking my support in helping to form an organization in the U.S. similar to one he had been a part of in the U.K., a trade group for publishers of what they call in England, customer magazines, and what we call in the U.S., custom magazines. There were about five or six of us at the first meeting of what became known as the Custom Publishing Council in (I’m a little rusty on the year, 1997) and by our second meeting, most of the major consumer magazine publishing companies were on board along with those of us who are independents.

Today, I attended a meeting of the Custom Publihsing Council with about 50 or so other folks who represent the 60 companies that are now members of the Custom Publishing Council: Talented, savvy folks who are my competitors and friends.

As I was flying home this afternoon, I thought about trying to look up who that expert was who by predicting the demise of custom publishing, helped inspire its survival and growth.