Ads: Perhaps you’ve noticed, but this weblog has started back serving ads from a particular service that is going public this month. Last time, when I started doing this, I mentioned the service and I ended up getting kicked out of the program (long story). Anyway, I find it funny that because I use a certain platform for maintaining this weblog, I sometimes get served up an ad for inexpensive flights to Manila.

Slate’s “In other magazines”: I wish that Slate offered an RSS feed of its “In other magazines” feature (you get the RSS feed of everything, or nothing). I even wish I could bookmark this one feature. But, for some reason, it doesn’t always show up on their RSS feed, so I miss it most weeks.

Newsstand polling tool: The August issue of Ladies’ Home Journal will have a choice of two covers on the newsstands: the Bushes or the Kerrys. Home subscribers get the Bushes on the cover with an inset photo of the Kerrys.

Shameless self-promotional post: Once in a while, this weblog likes to pause in order to promote the accomplishments of the wonderful folks at its day job. So, here goes. The people I work with and the tremendous clients we work for have been honored for their editorial and design expertise. Please pardon my pride in their accomplishments when I point to this news item about them winning lots of awards including a “grand award” for American Spirit, a beautiful magazine we have the privilege of publishing. Also, a tip of the rexblog hat to a team of very talented and dedicated Hammock Publishing web-editors who were honored for their work on NFIB.com, as were the editorial staff of MyBusiness Magazine.

Number crunching: Crain’s NY Business reports that Ziff Davis Media may have overstated paid circulation numbers for PC Magazine in 2002 and 2003.

Ziff zips a response: It didn’t take long for Ziff Davis to issue a press release responding to the Crain’s NY Business report. In short, Ziff is blaming the “subscription agent.”

Quote:

The subscription agent, Synapse Group, Inc. (a Time Inc. subsidiary and
industry leader) who managed the program for these subscribers through its
freebizmag.com Web site, represented to Ziff Davis that all of the
subscriptions were individually requested by subscribers and that payment for
the subscriptions would be made by a third-party sponsor. Furthermore, ABC’s
audit process independently verified that these subscribers requested PC
Magazine and received copies of the magazine. These subscribers also provided
valuable data regarding their company name, type of business, job title and
job function. Freebizmag.com has been utilized by many leading publishing
companies to generate subscriptions for dozens of leading paid and controlled
publications.

In the course of recent ABC audit procedures, Synapse Group stated that it
did not yet bill the sponsor for certain of these subscriptions generated
through freebizmag.com, but would do so and also indicated that the sponsor
would pay the to-be-issued invoices.

Because these payments would occur more than seven months after the start
of service for these subscribers, they would not qualify as paid circulation
if a certain ABC rule applies. Ziff Davis asked ABC for an exception to that
rule, if applicable, and just learned today that ABC denied the request. Ziff
Davis may seek from ABC either a reconsideration of the denial or a finding
that the rule does not apply to these subscriptions, and strongly believes
that the lack of timely billing by the agent should not affect the
classification of the subscribers as paid. Ziff Davis will report the results
in accordance with the final determination by ABC.

Vaporzine watch: According to the St. Pete Times, “Late next month, Christine Crosby and her husband, Jonathan Micocci, will launch GRAND Magazine, a bi-monthly publication targeted at well-to-do Baby Boomers with grandkids. Comedian and new grandpa Billy Crystal will grace the cover. About 100,000 copies will be distributed.” According to publishers of the [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "ftpSite" hasn't been defined.]

, “This is the wealthiest, highest discretionary-income market there has ever been,” Crosby said in an interview at her home, overlooking a hammock, a small pool and Boca Ciega Bay. “It is just a gigantic market that has been ignored.”

However, the-always-raining-on-the-parades-of-people-like-Christine-and-Jonathan Samir Husni’s response is predictably cautionary (but correct):

Americans don’t like to be reminded that they’re aging, Husni said. They also don’t like to be lumped together; grandparents ages 45 and 85 may not share the same concerns or interests. “It’s like, we have 270-million Americans who walk every day,” he added. “But how many of them would buy a magazine called Walk?”

Samir always knows his stuff.

Google print adds more magazines: Rafat Ali updates us with news that “Google Print” an effort by Google to index offline or premium content (like Amazon.com’s “Inside the Book”), has added some new magazines to those it indexes.