Are they baiting me? If I tought they knew I existed, I’d swear those folks at MediaPost were planting stories just to see me flip out. Take the story today with the headline “Mags Proliferate, Fragment, Grow Even More Niche.” We’re I not heading into a meeting about proliferating a niche mag, I would suggest that Samir Husni is not getting enough publicity if the folks at MediaPost think this is news. And don’t get me started about this absurd observation:
The loss of some news magazines may also be explained by the impact of the Internet, which limits how timely magazines can be reporting the news. To that point, Striplin specifically mentioned blogging as potentially affecting magazine readership, although she expressed caution with regard to drawing any conclusions. “Blogging is a developing media,” she said. “We feel it’s too early to say what its eventual effect will be on the magazine business.”
Listen, I love blogging. I’m even thinking of starting one, myself. But (and if you want to search, I don’t have time now) as I’ve said repeatedly here, when you start comparing magazines and “the Internet” you might as well be comparing passion fruit to kumquats. Maybe I’ll have time later to explain this point yet again.
But here’s the quote from the story that sums up how seriously it should be taken:
Yet there is no doubt that magazines recognize the Internet’s important role in delivering content. The number of magazines available both in print and online climbed to 1,477 in 2004 versus 1,033 in 2003. The number of online-only magazines increased to 168 magazines from 124.
Using one hand, I can count about 25,000 magazines with websites (as the article doesn’t limit the number to “consumer magazines” or “b to b magazines” or “alumni magazines” or “association magazines” or “customer magazines”). And, as someone whose sonar gets pinged throughout the day when the word “magazine” appears on that world-wide-web thingee, I can tell you that about 100 “online-only magazines” (which is what, anyway?) are launched every day so to suggest there are now 168 of them without any clarifying explanation of the universe in which that number is supposed to be viewed is, well, baiting me.
rexblog bumper music from the iTunes store:
Math Suks (Jimmy Buffett)
Buzzworthy: I will go ahead and assume that it’s a compliment for Jeff Jarvis 
Well connected: The “anonymous vaporzine scout” sent me 
Swayed: The premiere issue of 
