Time marches on: Perhaps my favorite unanticipated benefit from maintaining this weblog is the “memory well” it provides me when I “recollect” something from the past that is connected to something “new.” For example, the Advertising Age article that I pointed to this morning, “Marketers Press for Product Placement in Magazine Text” regarding the “blurring lines” between magazine editorial and advertising made me immediately recall a post I made in 2002 that linked to a page-one article in the Wall Street Journal, “Time Inc.’s Southern Progress Weds Editorial and Ad Units.”

That WSJ article from two years ago said:

Many publications take pains to separate ads and editorial — often referred to as “church” and “state” — to avoid conflicts of interest. That way readers can assume that a pricey window appears in a house feature because the editors chose it for quality and style. Southern Progress is different. “There is no church and state,” says Michael Carlton, a former Southern Progress editor. “They all sit in the same church, maybe in different pews.”

Contrast that statement with the quote in today’s Advertising Age piece:

“From a Time Inc. perspective, I don’t see a world where we’re going to have product roundups as pure editorial that are going to have any bias towards any specific advertiser,” said Time Inc.’s executive vice president, Jack Haire.

Scary Nashville news: Speaking of BoingBoing, we’re it not for that weblog, I would not know about this priceless collection of country music wax figures up for sale on eBay. (Warning, the eBay page includes a really bad MIDI version of Dueling Banjos.)

Update: Thanks to the Nashville Post, we now know what’s up with these bizarre wax figures. (As I always point out, the Nashville Post is a subscription site, but well worth the price.)

According to a story just posted, the wax figures are from the Music Valley Wax Museum. (Not to be confused with the Country Music Wax Museum, which is also trying to dispose a similar collection.) The museum is located near the giant convention complex, Gaylord Opryland Hotel, in suburban Nashville. The hotel once included a large theme park, but several years ago, the park was demolished and replaced with the massive “shoppertainment” complex called Opry Mills and dubbed “Shopryland,” by some local wags.

Quote:

“With Opryland closing, there are not as many families; there are more corporate people,” said developer and owner of the museum’s building John A. Hobbs. “The property would be worth a little more as something else. This is not a ‘have to sell.’ The building’s paid for, we still have a profitable business. The stockholders just want to go a different avenue.”

The decision to put the museum up for sale was made about a month ago. The Buy It Now Price on eBay is listed at $750,000, which with the original sets, clothing, and about fifty wax figures, Hobbs explained he thinks is a good, fair price.

There is no minimum bid, and Hobbs added, “we might stay on this for two years. We would like to sell it as a set, but if it doesn’t sell as a whole, we could sell it as individual. If someone wants to buy Alan Jackson, they could just buy him. We’ll go so long as we need.”

The whole money & weblogs thing: This week I’ll be posting a few more items than usual about blogging as a business. (I know: I can no longer claim I don’t blog about bloggin.) On Saturday, I’ll be attending Bloggercon and am looking forward to what folks share during the session on this topic led by Jeff Jarvis. As a follow-up to the piece I wrote for Business Media Magazine about business-to-business magazines and weblogs, here’s a link to a piece by Rebecca Lieb about the transition of the weblog BoingBoing from blog to business. Frankly, however, the BoingBoing experience is not a new phenomenon. Such ground-up online media as the Drudge Report, Fark.com and Slash-Dot-Org (to name just a few) have travelled the same trail from “hobby to business” now being trekked by BoingBoing (and, no doubt, many other weblogs). The property can be profitable, but “a media empire”? That hyperbole likely won’t bounce.

Detritus Magazine: Gee. This New Yorker Talk of the Town piece about the editorial process used by Stanford students producing the annual parody issue of The Stanford Chaparral sounds like a typical week at Hammock Publishing. This year, those whacky Chappie kids decided to produce a parody of a pile of papers found on the desk of Ronald Rembrandt DeLa Duffy. You can purchase a copy of the “very important files” for yourself, or, if you prefer, send me $5 and I’ll grab a file out of one of my drawers and send you that instead. On second thought, forget that second idea.(via mediabistro.com)

(Chappie extra: “Ad Review Weekly Reviews Magazines and Their Ads”)

Update: Upon reflection, the Chappie parody reminds me of a post I made a while back about Found Magazine, which is comprised of random trash its editor digs up (which, come to think of it, describes lots of magazines.)

Bang-up good time I’m trying to imagine one of the attendees of this magazine-sponsored event informing her husband and kids know why she’s coming to Nashville for Easter weekend.

Product placement: I’ll be commenting later today about this article in Advertising Age about how advertisers are trying to influence the editorial decisions of magazines (is this new?) and how magazines are agreeing to do so (is this new?).

Quote:

“More advertisers ask us to blur the lines between advertising and editorial,” said Nina Lawrence, president of Conde Nast’s Bridal Group and publisher of Bride’s and Modern Bride. “It’s accelerated in the last year.” Ms. Lawrence placed the blame for this squarely on branded-entertainment deals: “Advertisers are asking for what they want on TV, and they’re getting it.”

It may not be only advertisers seeking such deals. Peter Gardiner, partner and chief marketing officer of Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Deutsch, said his company was approached by a magazine with an editorial concept worked around one of his clients. “It’s a really tricky area,” he said.

Concerns over this point led one incoming editor of a midsize endemic magazine to write into an employment contract a clause stating that the magazine must strictly observe guidelines governing the separation of advertising and editorial set down by watchdog group the American Society of Magazine Editors, said an executive familiar with the matter.

This land’s name is our name: The NYT’s David Carr has a story in today’s paper about two magazines that use a form of America in their names. He doesn’t mention that the very first magazine in America was called American Magazine. And wait, I know of another magazine with the the word American in it.