Post-it note postage: On Friday, the USPS filed a request at the Postal Rate Commission for approval of a “market test” of “repositional notes” (or, in english, post-it notes with heavy-duty adhesive). According to the request (you can download this PDF of the document from the PRC’s website), the Postal Service claims use of such notes increases advertising opportunities for mailers and thus the value of the mail. According to the request, the notes will cost one half cent per piece ($.005) for First-Class mail and one and a half cents per piece ($.015) for periodicals and standard mail. (Side note: Why doesn’t the USPS have anything about the US Postal cycling team on its website front page? I know they’ve decided to drop sponsorship in the future, but wouldn’t it be a good use of its existing marketing investment to have something online tie-in to the massive publicity their brand is currently receiving?)

There’s nothing new about magazine outsourcing: As someone who makes a living by providing magazine outsourced services, I find it interesting that Business 2.0 “experimented” with outsourcing a section of the magazine to India as part of a package in their August issue due out next week. According to USA Today (scroll down), editor Josh Quittner, says the section came out just fine and ended up costing about half as much as it normally would.

Quote:

So is outsourcing the wave of the future in magazines? No, says Quittner, 47. “I kind of feel about this the way I feel about the Web in journalism: In my lifetime, outsourcing is not going to threaten my profession. But someday, technology will be sufficiently advanced so that it might.”Quittner says outsourcing is not a threat to people in highly collaborative, creative businesses such as his. “If we put out a magazine that was more straight-out analysis and less narrative reporting, I think you could absolutely outsource,” he says. “But when you add to that the element of locale — the more face-to-face you are with the subject, the better your story — it really becomes something that is not offshoreable. “Add the limitations of the phone system, language barriers and time barriers, and you really throw in a number of insurmountable degrees of difficulty.”

Despite Quittner’s observation, except for a few notable exceptions, magazine publishing is perhaps the most outsourced collaborative business process known. Free lance phtographers, writers, editors, designers and illustrators contribute to most magazines. Pre-press, printing and distribution is outsourced. Fulfillment (the handling of subscriptions, lists, etc.) is outsourced. Marketing services and advertising sales are often outsourced.

Whether or not these services can be “outsourced off-shore” may be up for debate, but whether outsourcing is the “wave of the future” in magazines is pretty-much a done deal.

(Thanks Eddie Rider for the heads-up.)

Discretion: As the topic of this story in the Toledo Blade is rather heavy — a magazine called Compassion published by death row inmates — I will skip my usual practice of twisting some ironic, snide remark into a post.

Scooped: Here’s what I get for lingering at Starbucks rather than firing up my newsreader: The NYT’s David Carr does a piece on dejazines (while not using the term) and Rafat Ali is kind enough to remind the world of what I’ve already dubbed the genre and what he is always the first reporter to catch.