Despite the lukewarm reviews (see below), Wired's IPad app appears to be doing well:

Wired magazine sold 24,000 copies of its $4.99 app in the first 24 hours of its release, according to a tweet by John Abel, the mag’s NY bureau chief. With the 70 percent revenue split, that means that Conde Nast took away $83,832. It helps that Wired’s tech audience tends to be early adopters, so it remains to be seen if other Conde Nast titles will enjoy that same immediate sales jump.

Not surprising, the Wired app has already shot up to number one among the paid apps, way ahead of Vanity Fair, whose $4.99 app was released two weeks ago and is at number 90. The Wired app number is impressive, especially since Conde Nast has already counted about 63,000 paid app downloads across both the iPhone and iPad since November, all of which go toward its total circ, under the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The publisher is planning a few additions to drive paid downloads further.  For example, unlike Conde Nast’s GQ app, there’s no automatic subscription notice for the Wired app yet, but execs told paidContent earlier this week that this feature is coming soon.

From paidcontent.org. Full story here

From MIN Online. Full story here

Conde Nast continues its promised roll-out of print titles for the iPad. Vanity Fair was released late last week for both the iPhone and iPad at $4.99 an issue. The mobile iterations follow closely the model used in GQ. The full contents of the magazine can be thumbed in facsimile format when the iPad is in landscape mode. Facing pages appear on the screen and the usual multi-touch controls manage zooming. In portrait mode the current article’s text is rendered in a long scroll beneath the splash image, which can be zoomed to full screen or swiped to show any more images in the set. Text fonts in portrait mode can be enlarged.

Editorially, the mobile issues also add some extra content: video of the Hawaii shoot for the cast of Lost; an extended piece on the last season of the show, an extended profile of Emma Watson and an app-exclusive spotlight on illustrator Ed Sorel. On the advertising side several of the sponsors have video spots attached to the renderings of their print ads.

Vanity Fair for iPad follows a less radical approach to redesigning the magazine reading experience than Bonnier’s efforts with Popular Science’s iPad app. At the same time it accommodates the hardware more adroitly than Rodale’s Men’s Health, which adds more multimedia enhancement without altering the print format. Apparently recognizing recent complaints by iPad users that the single issue pricing of these apps is multiples higher than a subscription rate, Vanity Fair is giving a price break to customers. Once one buys the first iPad edition for $4.99, subsequent months will cost only $3.99.

Magazine ad pages continued their slide in November. MediaBuyerPlanner reports that MIN's latest survey of ad pages sold in consumer magazines show that November ad pages were down 19.2% from November of 08. There are a few bright spots.

Of 171 titles MIN reported on, 84% saw ad pages decline for the month; 46% saw pages fall more than 20%, and 24.5% saw declines of 30% or more. Conde Nast’s W was one of the biggest losers, down 51% in ad pages, while Elle Decor was down 49%.

A few titles improved in November. People Stylewatch, for example, was up 32% in ad pages, and National Geographic was up 21.2%. Southern Living, More, Real Simple and Guns & Ammo also gained significantly in ad pages for the month.

MIN’s figures echo the third-quarter results recently released by the Publishers Information Bureau. Total ad pages for consumer magazines were down 26.6% for Q3 compared to the third quarter last year, per PIB. For the first half, ad pages were down 27.9%.

ZenithOptimedia’s latest ad forecast predicts that global ad spending will bottom out this year and will return to positive growth - though at just 0.5% - in 2010. Magazine advertising, however, will continue to decline for at least the next two years, ZenithOptimedia says.

GQ's "Man of the Year" issue will be available for download through the IPhone App Store. What is interesting is that the download will include, not only all of the content but all of the advertising from the issue as well. Full story here

"As Condé Nast tries to move beyond its restructuring issues, the company is pushing ahead with several attempts to ramp up its digital business. In conjunction with the December GQ “Man of The Year” cover, the publisher will sell app version of the entire issue, including the same ads and articles, in the iPhone App Store, the company told paidContent.

Clearly, Condé Nast hopes that more than reproducing its magazine in digital form, it can reproduce the kinds of circulation and ad dollars that print has commanded for so long. So far, the GQ app has gotten the nod from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which says that sales of the e-reader version qualify for the mags rate base. That means in ABC’s eyes, downloading the for $2.99 will count the same as a buying a $4.99 copy of GQ at the newsstand."

The people at Conde Nast have always appeared to take extraordinary efforts to project the image that they were different than the rest of us - smarter, better looking, better dressed, everything. If you ever have a reason to ask someone involved with a Conde Nast publication to do anything out of the ordinary "But we are Conde Nast" is a rationale that is supposed to be completely understandable to the rest of us who aren't. So, how is it that the geniuses at Conde Nast didn't see this one coming? And what I would love to know is did they try to do anything differently to make up what appears to be a $1 Billion shortfall? Did they try to sell their ads differently? Did they try to package their products or prove to customers that their publications produce results? They even hired an expensive consulting firm to help them.

They are the smartest people around, they must have tried something other than just cutting people and closing titles, right? Well, maybe not. I have not heard of any recent innovation coming from any of the Conde Nast titles, with the possible exception of Wired, in anything they do. Nor do any of the news reports on their collapse reference any plan for resurrection. I guess it is not cool to worry about saving the company. 

Here is Newsweeks's story on Conde Nast's collapse: full story here.

From Sunday's New York Times- this story on cost cutting at Conde Nast: 

"A three-month McKinsey & Company project advising the publisher how to reduce costs is drawing to a close, and several magazines have been told to cut about 25 percent from their budgets. The company’s editors and publishers have already been under pressure to reduce costs this year, as advertising has plunged, and Condé Nast has closed two magazines in 2009, Domino and Condé Nast Portfolio.

But cost-cutting at Condé Nast is not quite like cost-cutting at other publishers. For example, on Oct. 13, the men’s magazine GQ will host a party in Washington to promote its list of powerful capital players, to appear in its November issue. The party is upscale: it will be held at the 701 Restaurant, known for its caviar and live piano music.

That is not the only expense involved. Several editorial employees will travel from New York for the evening. And they received an e-mail message recently reminding them to limit their expenses for the night — to $1,000 a person."

Here is a way for Conde Nast to make more money - sell tickets to watch the cost cuts being implemented at Vogue.