It’s a big world, afterall: The U.S. Census Bureau today projected that on Sunday, the nation’s population will be 297,821,175 up 2,713,518 or 0.9 percent from New Year’s Day 2005. In January, the U.S. is expected to register one birth every eight seconds and one death every 12 seconds. Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 31 seconds. The result is an increase in the total population of one person every 14 seconds.

(via: ResourceShelf)

There is nothing new about a website launching a print magazine: For some reason, whenever a web-based media company launches a print magazine, reporters feel the need to make it into a trend story, implying that there is something “new” about it. Today it’s Business Week reporting the launch of a print version of a “webzine.” (Gee, and how cute the use of that 1996ish term, webzine.)

Quote:

So it comes as quite a surprise that eight years later, at a time when the magazine industry is falling over itself to boost its presence online, that BabyCenter has launched a version of its popular Web site on — gasp — paper.

A surprise? Gasp! To whom? As a former associate of mine wrote a couple of years ago, popular websites have been trying to become successful magazine publishers for as long as there have been successful websites.

Here’s a partial list of some web-to-print magazines that launched and later ceased publication: eBay Magazine, Yahoo! Internet Life, Garden.com’s Garden Escape Magazine, Motley Fool Monthly and Buy.com Magazine (which was actually a catalogue in all but name). Even Pets.com had a magazine.

And — gasp — there have also been “success stories” in web-to-print arena, for example TheKnot.com’s regional magazines.

Update: Oh, and how could I forget JPG Magazine, the first “blog-to-print” magazine about which I’ve blogged on numerous occasions.

Update II: Trend story, trend story.

Technorati Tags: magazines

Fine Advice: Business Week’s media writer Jon Fine has advice for newspapers; advice that works for other traditional media, as well. (I’m thinking B-to-B).

Quote:

STEAL FROM GOOGLE. Make your ads hyper-accountable. Identify the top advertisers in your local market and figure out what it would take to grab 100% of their ad budgets. Give them unlimited pages, on paper and online, until they reach their goals. You’re the biggest guy in town. Your per-page cost of newsprint is cheap — and your per-impression cost online is even cheaper. Leverage that to cut off your rivals’ oxygen….

USE YOUR READERS. Building communities and businesses around community-created content was not invented by MySpace.com. One bright spot for the Reader’s Digest Assn. (RDA ) is Reiman Publications, which runs a host of homey, ad-free titles that lean heavily on reader-written contributions. Is there a sufficient subcultural pulse in your city to pull off a mini-myspace? Are locals writing hobbyist blogs that you can build about.coms around? There have always been more talented content creators than full-time jobs for them; the platform of the Net makes them visible. Do you want them inside your tent as partners or outside it as competitors?

Technorati Tags: B2B, blogging, magazines

Khoi going to the Times: Designer Khoi Vinh is leaving the firm he co-founded to become the design director for NYTimes.com.

Quote from Khoi:

In a few weeks, I’ll be starting work at The New York Times as the Design Director for NYTimes.com. I’ll be heading up their staff of Web designers, helping to bring new improvements and features to the Gray Lady’s formidable online presence, and also working to define the role that design will play in the paper’s increasingly digital future.

I met Khoi in Austin last March at SxSW and point to his blog often.

37Signals’ Matt Linderman (with a wink) suggests it was Khoi’s work on the redesign of another newspaper of record, The Onion, that convinced the Times that Khoi was their man.

Congratulations to Khoi and the NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: design