From MINOnline

Domino Tops ‘Most Missed’ Magazine Poll

Steve Smith

Well, you guys really, really miss your Domino magazine. In last week’s wildly popular minonline poll that asked “Which Magazine Do You Miss the Most?” the style and décor book that we last saw over a year ago topped the voting. With 1,238 votes counted across 10 choices, a remarkable third (33%) most missed their Domino.

“I still thumb through old, dog-eared copies,” says one comment in the poll. And she is not alone among collectors of the book. “Every time I look at my old issues I can't believe there won't be any more coming in the mail,” says one longing reader. “Bring back Domino,” say another. We contacted publisher Condé Nast about the prospects of reviving their defunct and apparently beloved title, and they declined to comment.

But former Domino editor-in-chief Deborah Needleman did tell minonline, “So nice if you have to be gone, not to be forgotten also!” And former publisher Beth Brenner, now at Traditional Home, tells us, “Not a day passes when I don’t encounter a former Domino reader lamenting its passing — literally, not a day. No other media property has taken its place in their hearts — or their lives — so it is touching, but not surprising, that we would be the most missed.”

By the way, for fans who want to wax nostalgic, Domino’s Facebook page is still available. The most recent post was titled “farewell” on Jan. 30, 2009. It garnered 231 comments.

Our second most-missed title, Spy magazine (28.7%) brought forth some of the most enthusiastic commentary. One of the satire magazine’s biggest fans was philosophical about the book, however. “I kept all my 1986-89 copies of Spy; more than twenty years on. The sheer volume of ideas and creativity is astounding. Perhaps even more than most defunct magazines, though, Spy had a time and place — it withered and died for a reason, and a revival would likely just be sad.”

Gourmet, Life and Metropolitan Home rounded out the top five most missed magazines. But our comments board was filled with others we didn’t nominate. The brainy Lingua Franca was mentioned more than once as was Sassy. Budget Living, Grand Street, I.D. and Cookie also got write-ins.

Actually in lieu of bringing back any or all of these magazines, we wonder if their publishers would be willing to put the back catalog into Google’s Books project where scores of new and old titles are available for searching and viewing. The full polls results are below.


Which Magazine Do You Miss Most

The blog post below, from the Suburban Newspaper Association of America, unintentionally offers the perfect illustration of the illogical thinking of many publications in regards to pay walls on web sites. On one hand, the author, Deb Shaw, points out that newspapers are the primary initiators of local content and that other mediums, including citizen-written efforts and blogs are ill equipped to displace newspapers in this role. On the other hand, the author ominously quotes a survey showing that most Americans want their news for free and would search elsewhere for content if it was not given away free by publications.

Search where? If local newspapers are not writing it, readers can search all they want, it won't exist. I want a new car to be free but no matter how many auto dealers I go to the darn things still cost money. Besides, am I missing something, hasn't the last 10 years taught publications that the cost of creating content and distributing it free on websites outweighs the revenue that can be generated by online ads of any form? On some level it is supply and demand- online advertisers are buying traffic and there are so many online opportunities that supply online has far outstripped demand, thereby deflating ad rates and that will make it tough for originally produced free content to be paid for entirely by paid advertising anytime in the near future. 

If you disagree with me and want to read more of the "give-it-away-free-because-someday-traffic-will-result-in-revenue" philosophy go to the SNA's website, here.

Weathering The Perfect Storm

From MIN: 

As part of its new promotion of magazines to consumers and advertisers alike, the ‘Power of Print’ campaign launched a video into the YouTube ecosystem yesterday. The lions (and lionesses) of print—Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore, Condé Nast president and CEO Charles Townsend, Wenner Media chairman Jann Wenner, Hearst Magazines president Cathie Black and Meredith National Media Group president Jack Griffin—all mock the bloggers and pundits who have declared the death of print at the hands of the Internet.

“What actually happens is that people find room in their lives for the new medium alongside the media they already love,” says Moore. This will continue as long as the old media continue to provide “an irreplaceable value,” adds Townsend.

Watch it here . The video is part of the multititle in-print push to defend and promote the enduring value of magazines. The campaign will appear across thousands of ad pages in scores of titles in coming months.

The YouTube video has been viewed just over 3,100 times as of this morning.

In this excerpt from an article on Google Wave by the Newspaper Association of America, the NAA gives us just another example of how the organization continues to misunderstand how its members make the money they use to pay its dues. Google Wave does not offer any sustainable revenue stream for publications. If everyone would give away their content for free, a lot of people could come up with a cool way of displaying it too. But Wave does nothing for the publications who actually have to pay people to go out and write stories. Hard to believe that the NAA consistently misses this point, maybe they believe, as Google does, that as long as your motto says you intend to do no harm, it is ok to wrip off print publications.

Here is what they said. Full story here, if you have the stomach to read it.

As Google Wave ends its first year of existence, we have learned two things:

First, there’s no shortage of critics who are happy to argue that the Google product, which combines threaded conversations with collaborative document editing and a host of embedded interactive gadgets, may be a technology searching for a purpose.

Second, the term “beta” applied to a Google product means just that for a change—until a recent round of bug fixes, the service slowed to a crawl or crashed as soon as the number of visitors participating in a “wave” reached the kind of critical mass a media site would draw.

Does that mean newspapers should wait to begin experimenting with Wave? Not at all – especially given its potential to shape conversations both within and beyond news organizations, argue early industry dabblers in the technology.

“Think about how many newsrooms would have killed to be on top of a social media tool like Twitter four years ago, before it became as popular,” says Chris Taylor, online editor of TBO.com, who oversees converged Web operations for The Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV. “We want to make sure our newsroom is familiar with Wave so if it becomes the next great tool for media consumption, we know how to be there for our audience.”

From the Association of Free Community Papers (AFCP: 

How Print Helps the Internet

Telegraph.co.uk became the first British newspaper website when it was launched 15 years ago.

When I took over the editorship of the fledgling Telegraph internet site early in 1995, two questions were constantly being posed to me. The first was: how can you make money out of something you give away free? The second was: does this mean the end of newspapers? The first of these questions was always the most tricky, because, in reality, no one had a clue how we were going to make money. The Telegraph's internet operation was essentially a marketing initiative with a brief to explore this new medium and report back. No one said anything about making money, although reader offers were always part of the mix from the start, so there was a token nod in the direction of commerce.

I recall a rather a rather scary meeting with the then proprietor Conrad Black, who asked me the same question. I pointed out to him that he was always complaining that city analysists undervalued the share price of Hollinger (which owned the Telegraph) and that one of the reasons they gave was that the company did not have an internet strategy. By backing an internet newspaper, I reasoned, he would show them that he did have a strategy and his share price would rise accordingly - so at least he would make some money that way. The answer seemed to satisfy him and we were allowed to keep going.

The longer term answer remains elusive. Short of charging for content, no one really is completely sure 15 years later. And although the telegraph's internet operations do attract many millions of advertising revenue now, these revenues are still smaller than the sales and advertising revenue of the print titles.

As to the second question, my answer remains the same as it was then: of course the internet doesn't spell the end of newspapers. No new medium has ever sunk an older one without trace. Contrary to popular musical mythology, video didn't kill the radio star (although DVD and Blu Ray have certainly given video a kicking) and TV didn't kill radio - in fact, radio is going from strength to strength, while a lot of TV is struggling to survive.

And the longer time goes on, the more convinced I am that that the internet needs newspapers. The reason is simple: people like reading, and whilst reading from a screen is bearable for short items, it gets tedious for anything more than a few hundred words. I'm prepared to bet that the majority of people, young and old alike, when they find something online they want to give detailed study to - whether its an article or the terms and conditions of their holiday booking - the first thing they do is hit the 'print' button so they can sit down with a bit of paper in their hands.

I think there's something deeply ingrained in the DNA of post Gutenberg culture concerning typography and design - and nowhere do you find more exciting an innovative typeography and design than in mass ciculation newspapers and the plethora of magazine and supplements they bring in their wake. And whilst the design of websites has advanced from the rather sparse minimalism that characterised our efforts 15 years ago, they still have a long way to go before they can replicate the best that newspapers have to offer.

But beyond the aesthetic argument, there's a more profound argument about the centrality of newspapers, and this is to do with the business of telling stories, and creating compelling narratives. If you examine the world's great online sources of news and opinion, for example, the vast majority of them have sprung from newspapers or from broadcast organisations with strong roots in newspaper journalism culture.

So, in a curious way, things have come full circle. Fifteen years ago, the Telegraph newspapers needed an internet site to help transform the brand image of the paper, to make it seem more modern and relevant. Now, I think, when our internet presence has made us a global brand, we need the newspaper even more to remind those readers why they value what they are reading.

The Newspaper Association of America can usually be counted on to put the best spin on the difficult situation facing publications. Here is the latest:

"As a researcher, I can share with you what the numbers show about the newspaper business. Scarborough Research has tracked the audiences of newspapers for more than 35 year. Our 2009 measurements indicate that, in contrast to stereotypes or misconceptions, readership of newspapers, while declining, is still relatively strong and part of our routine and culture. According to our latest newspaper ratings:

·74% of adults read a paper in print or online during the past week. Newspaper readership in some markets reach upwards of 90%.

·19% visited a newspaper website during the past week.

·70% of American adults (18+) read a printed newspaper during an average week.

While the numbers speak for themselves, I understand why readership may be in question. Media has spent more than a decade incorporating online platforms into our strategies. Hear the word "newspaper" and we think exclusively of paper and ink editions. But the reality is that newspapers have become more than the traditional printed copy. Scarborough data demonstrates that newspapers are successfully extending their audiences online, providing a 4% "lift" in readership to their print companions."