Picture this: The NY Times has launched The NY Times Photo Archives, but don’t get too excited. It’s a store. Still, it’s a great idea.

Quote:

The New York Times Photo Archives contains historic images carefully preserved over the past 100 years — one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of photographs in the world. Search from more than 1,100 images online, or contact us to find images not yet posted. These classic photographs are sold as exhibition-quality archival prints, and are also available in custom print options that offer exciting design possibilities.

(via ResearchBuzz)

Next step in building an empire: Rafat Ali’s (PaidContent.org) company, now with the cool name, Context Next, is hiring a “journalist-blogger” as he expands his pioneering business-to-busines blog-format media enterprise. The job is temporary but may transition into a full-time contracted position. I predict there will be many, many more blogger-journalists hired by Rafat as he shows us how to build a business-to-business media company from the blog-garage up. Cool.

Learning from failure: It’s really a pleasure to point to an article in which a magazine publishing executive expresses a note of humility.

Marconi personally taught me how to podcast: Marc Eisenstadt provides some grown-up insight and historical context into podcasting.

Quote:

“Podcasting glues-and-scripts-together a lot of things that are already available, but the big ’so what?’ comes from the fact that until now nobody had really achieved the complete cradle-to-grave life cycle from out-in-the-ether -> RSS feed -> portable gadget, and in a way that was open source and extendible: this is what has really fired the imagination.”

On a related note, Russell Beattie defends himself from some complaints about his “don’t talk about podcasting” post (that I didn’t complain about, but referred to).

[And on another note not related to Russell (inserted for clarification] I am amused by some of the “I was audioblogging before (insert podcaster name here) even knew what a blog was” that is taking place by those who wish to stake claim on podcasting pioneer status — or, to dismiss the echo-chamber hype swirling around the alpha-geek neighborhood of the blogosphere. Such inevitable debates over who is responsible for any innovation has led to my practice of always crediting Dave Winer, no matter what the innovation. (However, in this case, I’ll note that Marc Cuban has already made a few billion dollars from acting on a hunch related to people listening to broadcasts over the Internet.)

Much later update: Another clarification: I credit Dave because he derserves it.

(via PaidContent.org)

My answer: David Carr asks in today’s NY Times, “What is up with all the personal pronouns (in the names of magazines)? What is next? We the People? Your Magazine? I Weekly?

It’s not often that I can personally answer David, but as I (when not blogging) am (among other things) the editor and publisher of the 550,000-circulation magazine pictured, MyBusiness, I know about the topic. First, it was named five years ago (so much for the “recent trend” theory) and I came up with it, so I know it wasn’t the result any expensive research except me listening to hundreds of our readers talk about their work.

Was the name influenced by the Internet, as suggested in the article today. No, it was suggested by how small business owners and the people who work with them use the term “my business” as a term of pride, a term of ownership and a term of unique personal knowledge. On a related note, it is my opinion that the use of the second-person pronouns “You” or “Your” in the name of a magazine makes no sense as it clearly communicates to the reader that the publisher is the “we” and the reader is the “you,” which is the exact opposite of what I think is key to the success of any magazine.

Speaking of my business, I just noticed that today is the 13th anniversary of the start of my business. Wow. It doesn’t seem that long. No, wait. On second thought, it does.

rexblog bumper music: My Ding-A-Ling (Chuck Berry)

How magazines get started (continued): From today’s NY Daily News comes an article about the new magazine, Uptown:

Started by former execs of Vanguarde Media, which went bankrupt last year, it will devote itself to covering everything that’s making Harlem hot - from the real estate boom of new condos to businesses like yoga studio Ta Life, to Settepani, an Italian-Ethiopian owned bakery that boasts a buzzing cafe scene. Still, any new magazine has an uphill battle to thrive. Ohio-born Leonard Burnett Jr., 40, publisher of Harlemwood Publishing that puts out Uptown, has already tried to reach a national upscale African-American readership with Savoy. It folded when Vanguarde Media went bust, said Howard Buford, chief executive of Prime Access, an ad agency, who suggested a regional mag might have an even bigger challenge. “Homogeneity decreases as you go up the income scale among readers in the African-American audience,” said Buford, whose agency specializes in marketing to minority groups. “That’s where the challenge has been: How can you get a point of view across that appeals to the audience? That was the challenge for Savoy.”

(Explanation: How magazines get started.)

(via mediabistro.com)

rexblog bumper music: Uptown (Grover Washington Jr.)