Time.com is adding blog and RSS feeds today, says Mark Walsh of MediaPost.com. Of course, since Anna Marie Cox and Andrew Sullivan are as close to blog pioneers as people come, I’m a little confused on the suggestion that blogs are something new. As for that matter, I’ve been getting RSS feeds from Time for a long time. I think it’s great the’re doing some new things (Anna Marie Cox’s new blog, for example) — and placing more emphasis on the timliness of Time.com, but “adding blogs” and “RSS” is not the something new. How they use them will be something big, if they follow through. From a magazine historical perspective, moving the publishing date from Monday to Friday is the headline story.

Technorati Tags: magazines

In the race to extend magazine brands: Car and Driver magazine is introducing the “Car and Driver Race Series — powered by Precision Racing.” This means you, too, can be a race car driver: According to the press release, “No racing experience will be required and anyone can participate with their own car in a nationwide program, with no cops, no tickets and no clubs to join.” Participants will be charged with three driving skill challenges. Winners of these competitions in each market will ultimately compete in a national two-day championship. Entry fee is $99. Complete series information will be available (someday, but not now) at www.caranddriverraceseries.com.

I’m afraid if I participated in this, I’d have to change the name of this weblog to WRECKSblog.com

The Rolling Stone sees the light: As recommended here a week ago, apparently there was a come-to-Jesus-meeting at the Rolling Stone and, well, here’s the quote in USA Today:

“We have addressed the internal miscommunications that led to the previous misstatement of company policy and apologize for any confusion it may have caused,” Lisa Dallos, spokeswoman for Wenner Media, Rolling Stone’s parent company, said Monday. She declined to elaborate.”

Okay. If that’s the case, I’ll elaborate for her. Here’s what I imagine she really wanted to say: “We were, like, really strung out at the time and then later, like, we had this ephiphany: people, like, get really pissed when you reject ads for the Bible. Who knew? Like, how were we to know it would be judged as one of the most dumbass decisions in the history of advertising-supported magazines? And, oh yeah, we thought it would be helpful to the Zondervan Bible marketing effort if we rejected the ad and later ran it. You know, like confessing our sins and all. We thought they could benefit from all the publicity from such a stupid decision on our part. Anyway, we love it when ten million-or-so fundamentalist preachers all across America suggest to their church members that their sons and daughters should not purchase our magazine. Anyway, we’re sorry. Jeeze.” (Again, that’s my elaboration, people: she didn’t actually elaborate on Rolling Stone’s stupidity.)

As I said last week, God works in mysterious ways.

Young, pretty, rich, TV, movie starts divorcing add up to a Dick Stolley dream cover: People is rushing out (four-days-early) this week’s issue
for folks like my friend Lena Basha, our company’s in-house volunteer
Hollywood gossip maven (she’s been so on-top of this forever). In the
words of one of my magazine heroes, Richard Stolley, founding editor of
People (and many other accolades), “Young is better than old. Pretty is
better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. TV is better than music.
Music is better than movies. Movies are better than sports. Anything is
better than politics. (and, later added) Nothing is better than the
celebrity dead.” I’m guessing Dick, who’s still at Time, would add,
“Young, pretty, rich, TV, movie stars divorcing are better than
anything but a dead celebrity.”

Vogue’s “shoppertainment” feature to launch in March: Longtime rexblog readers may recall that ast August, I declared the “Shop September” Vogue shoppertainment “the real deal” :

Quote from the rexblog, 8.26.04:

Okay. I will go on record. As I am noted for scoffing at technologies that on the surface appear awfully close to what’s going on here, notably the “CueCat” and “digital editions” of magazines, I would like to express what may be an unexpected thumbs up to the Vogue experiment. It works. I highly recommend magazine publishers go click around the site. It’s a helpful extension of the magazine…yet is a unique online experience as well. It is not goofy like the CueCat or clueless like I believe may be the case with PDF-ish digital replicas of print publications.

Today, the WSJ is reporting that in March, Vogue will launch shopvogue.com. The article makes it sound “newsworthy” that only fashion companies that advertise in Vogue’s March issue will be allowed to sell their wares on the site. (Am I missing something? Is that news? It’s a service that allows readers to purchase items appearing in the ads. So does it not seem obvious that if your ad does not appear in the magazine, you won’t have items appearing in an ad in the magazine.) As they took down the September version of the site, you can’t go try it out. If you could, you would see it is nothing like you think it is going to be, but a completely new, web-savvy user experience. I wish now that I had done some screen grabs.

Quote:

As they could in September, visitors to shopvogue.com will be able to buy certain styles featured online by clicking a buy now icon on an advertiser’s online ad, assuming the ad is set up for electronic-commerce or linked to an e-commerce site. Otherwise, ads will provide information about bricks-and-mortar stores where the featured items can be purchased.

How magazines get started (continued): “Trendy new magazine is seeking upscale reader across metro Detroit.” Actually, the story is about several magazines seeking upscale readers across metro Detroit. (source: Detroit Free Press)

(Explanation: How magazines get started.)

Merry clone covers: Baby Jesus is big news this week. For the record, this week’s clone covers brings the year’s total to ten, which ties last year. With two weeks remaining, could they make it to 11? Stand by.

For an explanation of the rexblog feature, Clone Covers, visit [Macro error: Can’t evaluate the expression because the name “ftpSite” hasn’t been defined.]
. Previous 2004 [Macro error: Can’t evaluate the expression because the name “ftpSite” hasn’t been defined.]

Life less: Been under the weather today so I’m just getting around to pointing to where Keith Kelly says “industry observers” think the reincarnation of Life Magazine is “bleeding red ink at an alarming rate” and that advertising support is less than tremendous.

Is is okay for a writer to make money for the words he or she writes if he or she speaks them rather than publishes them in book form? Wake me up when Jack Shafer gets finished writing this column about whether or not it’s okay for New Yorker Magazine writers Malcolm Gladwell and James Surowiecki to receive speaking fees from corporations and trade associations. Shafer meanders around-and-around and I think, by the end, says one should judge a writer by the character of the words on the page and not by the color of his greenbacks. How can someone use so many words to say so little and not ever get around to this common sense ethically obvious point: Both writers, Gladwell and Surowiecki, are best-selling book authors. (And great ones, in my humble opinion.) Is it unethical for them to get rich from their writing (I’ve purchased and given away enough copies of Gladwell’s Tipping Point to finance an addition to the guy’s house, I’m sure)? I’m assuming Shafer will agree it is okay for a writer to have a book published and then allow a company to buy up lots of copies and hand them to all of its employees. If that is ethical, then why would it be even worth writing a column to question the ethics of an author being paid to make a speech about the topic of his or her book — basically, to speak the words from his or her book? I’m sorry. I don’t understand where there’s an ethical delimma here. Some major envy for Gladwell’s & Surowiecki’s success, perhaps, but an ethical delimma? Not one.

Welcome back: Long time readers of this weblog will know I’m happy to point to news that the current incarnation of the National Magazine Award multi-winner Oxford American is off the press and on its way to a newsstand near you.

Quote:

Once a for-profit publication, The Oxford American was adopted by the University of Central Arkansas earlier this year. The campus and its resources breathed life into the magazine after it neared extinction in July 2003 because of a dearth of ad sales. Once bimonthly, the nonprofit — a blend of fiction, poetry, art and journalism — will now print quarterly. A new business plan should transform the magazine’s stability, said editor and publisher Marc Smirnoff. Though the magazine has shut down three times in 10 years, this will be its last rebirth, he promised. “We’re not going away anymore,” Smirnoff said after an event for the magazine’s debut. “I’ve learned some valuable lessons. I was exhausted after the Little Rock crash, but our readers are over-the-top passionate. It’s hard not to take that personally.”

I once said each issue of Oxford American was a gift, so I’m treating this news as an early package under the tree. I’ve never been to Conway, Ark., nor am I familiar with the University of Central Arkansas, but I’d like to thank those fine folks. Congratulations, Marc.

No surprise to rexblog readers - Martha (the magazine) rebounding: I guess I can’t say, “I’m not one to say, ‘I told you so,’” as I continually disprove that claim on this weblog. So, as one who never misses the chance to say, “I told you so,” I am happy to point to this AP story (via Forbes.com).

Quote:

In a sign that many consumers aren’t concerned by Martha Stewart’s personal legal travails, readers of her flagship magazine are renewing their subscriptions at a pace well ahead of industry norms. That faithful readership may help encourage the return of advertisers who haven’t demonstrated the same loyalty since the magazine’s eponymous founder became tainted by a stock-trading scandal in June 2002. Nearly 70 percent of Martha Stewart Living subscribers said they planned to renew their subscriptions, according to a September survey conducted for WPP Group PLC’s Mediaedge:cia. The renewal rate is 19 percent better than the magazine industry average, an analysis by circulation consultancy Capell & Associates found.

As I’ve said on numerous occasions, including this from an August, 2002, post, “Magazines die when they lose touch with their readers and lose all relevance to the audience they have built. Thus, Rosie Magazine will die, but Martha Stewart (as it is a great magazine loved by its readers) will outlive the current unpleasantness.”

Healthy competition clone covers: I guess it’s time for both Time & Newsweek to run health-related covers simulataneously, since it’s been, what, almost 11 months since the last time?

And, oh, by the way. If that Newsweek cover looks familiar, it is. Here it is side-by-side with the February 24, 2003, issue of Newsweek.

For an explanation of the rexblog feature, Clone Covers, visit [Macro error: Can’t evaluate the expression because the name “ftpSite” hasn’t been defined.]
. Previous 2004 [Macro error: Can’t evaluate the expression because the name “ftpSite” hasn’t been defined.]

Magazine trend story? These three items have hit my in-box the last couple of days:

(1) “Muslim Malaysia has banned 40 books and magazines published in Britain and the United States deemed to have unsuitable sexual content.” (Agence France-Presse)

(2) “A district magistrate in the capital, Islamabad, ordered all copies of the 22 November issue (of Newsweek) to be destroyed. The issue contains an article about murdered Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh and pictures of a woman with Koranic verses inscribed on her body.” (BBC)

(3) “Kuwait yesterday launched an investigation into a Shi’ite magazine that caused an uproar by allegedly insulting Islam. Information Minister Mohammad Abulhasan said the Lebanese Al Minbar magazine, which was being printed illegally despite being banned since 2003, was blasphemous.” (Gulf Daily News)

Yes, Virginia: When Virginia Postrel, one of my favorite authors and bloggers, writes an article breaking-down an entire category of magazines in a new, insightful way for the Wall Street Journal that is a “free link,” well, that’s what I’d call a rexblog hat trick. Even if the article carries the sub-head, “In praise of shopping magazines.”

Quote:

For all their blatant materialism, however, Lucky and its kin actually represent cultural progress. Their unabashed presentation of goods as material pleasures keeps materialism in its place. They don’t encourage readers to equate fashion with virtue or style with superiority. They’re sharing fun, not rationing status.

As she has now persuaded me that shopping magazines are something other than a sign of the coming apocalypse, I am now ready also to be convinced by Virginia that, yes, there is a Santa Claus.

How magazines get started (continued): I’ve read (and linked to) lots of articles about how individuals have started magazines, but this one about Allison Shaw and her magazine, Hyperactive Music Magazine, has to be one of the most inspiring.

(Explanation: How magazines get started.)