Are magazines prepared for the digital era?

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Permalink Reply by Andy on June 4, 2009 at 11:05am

Sure Alex, just let me finish typing in these letters to the editor, first. :)

I think everyone wants to go from point A (traditional publishing business model) to point B (online $) as quickly as possible. We can hazily see point B in the future, but we can't figure out how to get there. It seems to me we're not all that close to point B. (I believe we will experience a monumental shift in thinking, even as we nickel and dime our way closer to point B, a monumental shift in thinking is in the works, IMHO).

The Internet is like a giant magazine, a giant free magazine with a whole lot of unpaid contributors. People are basically paying for the shipping, and the post office (service providers, hardware and software providers) are collecting all the revenue.

Every person who contributes code, words, or image is adding value to the magazine. The return on that energy investment for the individual contributor is emotional satisfaction? recognition? a sense of connection?

Same goes for text mesages, music, personal photos on an iPod. That's the content.

Part of me thinks the Internet, this great magazine, is underpriced. Part of me wishes there would be an actual subscription fee for the Internet. A person pays a monthly fee, not the same fee that goes to the service provider, but a fee that is distributed to all the web places the person utilizes in a month. Individual users of different sites could negotiate with the sites about how their revenue should be distributed. So a person goes out to a discussion forum like this one. Should FOLIO be making the revenue, or should people who are posting get a cut, too?

On the other hand, part of me wishes the whole thing was even cheaper than it already is, because all this unfettered communication is a beautiful thing.

Part of me thinks the solution to the online revenue puzzle comes from replicating the image of the Internet as a decentralized, non-profit, user-generated magazine, only on smaller scales.

How do we apply value to the feeling of connection? How do we apply value to the satisfaction of advancing an idea based on collaborative thinking?

What did we value in the past? The authority of the publishing company? The skill of the journalist? The instincts of the editors? Are we now shifting value to our own thoughts? Our own experiences? Value in communication between ourselves as individuals, without the meddling of professional experience makers?

Is the shift temporary? Will people tire of themselves? Will people run out of things to talk about? Will they realize that professionals can do it over and over, everyday forever? The law of diminishing returns suggests the new kind of value will eventually bottom out and plateau, and professional content will find a way to co-exist with user generated content. If we can increase the value of the amateur content, attach dollars and cents to user generated content, not just investment capital, but real money, will it raise the value of professional content, or will it take value away from professional content?

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Permalink Reply by Peter Milburn on June 4, 2009 at 4:37pm

Oh this is a good one: Print is the new Vinyl
http://tinyurl.com/o4e3t2

According to Glenn Cook, American School Board Journal’s editor-in-chief, print will eventually become “the new vinyl.” Despite the evaporation of its paid circ model, which has cut into his publication’s market, “people still want long-form and crave the full body, tactile print experience,” and while publishers need to accept that print may evolve into a niche market, he said, it doesn’t mean they should stop producing print products. “They just need to be very targeted.”

Sounds about right to me.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Evans on June 10, 2009 at 12:46pm

As I have read the consensus above, there is one common thread and that is scarcity. It is implied that because there are so many publications that there will be less people buying your pub. There is a principle that states that dollars follow value. If people like you, they will buy you if you can create enough value for y them. So stop looking at potential lost opportunity costs and find out what the consumer wants and give it to him.Your attention is your love and that's what your consumers want, they want your energy and passion.

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