The rise, and fall, of (new) media (jobs)

From David Carr's endlessly quotable Media Equation column in last week's New York Times, "The Fall and Rise of Media":

Young men and women are still coming here to remake the world, they just won’t be stopping by the human resources department of Condé Nast to begin their ascent.

For every kid that I bump into who is wandering the media industry looking for an entrance that closed some time ago, I come across another who is a bundle of ideas, energy and technological mastery. The next wave is not just knocking on doors, but seeking to knock them down.

Somewhere down in the Flatiron, out in Brooklyn, over in Queens or up in Harlem, cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful. They are jaded in the way youth requires, but have the confidence that is a gift of their age as well.

For them, New York is not an island sinking, but one that is rising on a fresh, ferocious wave.

I was a part of that group that stopped by Condé Nast (and Hearst, and Time Inc., and HFMUS, and Rodale, and Meredith, and even NYT) HR on my way to becoming an editor.

The difference, in my opinion: I didn't wait for them -- even though I wanted to.

A 30-year magazine veteran fights to keep storytelling relevant online

When's the last time you were told a great story online?

(Probably not in a long time.)

I recently interviewed Jim Gaines, a former editor of Time, Newsweek, Life and People, who wants to change that.

He's taking a magazine-style approach to interactive multimedia storytelling with a new venture, FLYPmedia.

I interviewed him for SmartPlanet, CBS' new site about smart technology, business, people and ideas.

Though FLYP is still in its infancy -- it reminds me of some of the work I did as a digital media student in journalism school -- Jim made some interesting insights as a 30-year veteran of magazine publishing moving toward the Web:

• "There are publications that are in print that don’t need to be in print and could be much more exciting in a digital frame."
  
  
• "Text is not the most the important element. It’s really a navigational device that leads people through the media."
  
  
• On producing interactive media: "It's like jazz. You all kind of stimulate each other. And it turns out better than anything you could have done yourself. When a video editor makes a great piece, it changes the story. When an animator does a great animation, it’s the same effect. It raises the game."

You can read the entire interview here.

Why quality journalism costs a lot of money

We all love those long-form magazine articles, the meat-and-potatoes pieces that address the big issues.

When you're not in a rush, reading such a lengthy article -- it can be anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000 words, believe it or not -- can be a revelation.

"I didn't know that," you might say to yourself.

With such length, you might suspect that the article took a lot of time to produce. That's probably true.

What you might not know is how much it cost.

Gerald Marzorati, assistant managing editor at The New York Times and editor of The Times Magazine, recently answered reader questions about the inner workings of the magazine he produces.

Some of his answers might surprise you.

Addressing a question about the viability of long-form journalism in an era of rapidly narrowing attention spans, Marzorati explains that the price of a cover story for the Times magazine costs more than twice the price of the average American home:

Long-form journalism is expensive: The Magazine is publishing a 13,000-word piece on Sunday (it will be up online earlier) that we did in partnership with ProPublica, the independent, not-for-profit newsroom. One of ProPublica's editors and I did a back-of-the-envelop calculation yesterday of what the total cost of the piece actually was, figuring in several years of reporting and nearly a year of editing. Estimate: $400,000.

That piece, "The Deadly Choices at Memorial," is about the poor healthcare decisions that arose in the Hurricane Katrina crisis in Louisiana in 2006.

Jon Stahl highlights the important points of Marzorati's Q&A session:

• A cover story can cost several hundred thousand dollars;
• A cover story can take years to produce;
• Long-form journalism actually get more pageviews online than their shorter counterparts.
  

Most people probably have no idea of the costs of such articles. And the debate rages on -- even within the journalism community -- about whether articles of such length can be effective online.

But next time you read that article in a magazine -- followed by another one, and another one, until you get to the back cover -- think about the $5 it cost you on the newsstand.

The problem with magazines à la carte

When Time Inc. first announced its plans to offer its magazine content à la carte, called "Mine," my first thought was that it was catching up with the times. After all, isn't that what people do on the Web? Pull what they deem the best from several different (and sometimes competing) publications?

But instead of posting, I thought I'd sit on the idea for awhile and let it stew on the backburner of my brain. It's never wise to rail against or praise a business model in a knee-jerk kind of way -- these things are often more complicated then they appear, and business models are chock full of competing interests.

Now that I've had some time to think about it, it occurs to me that with "Mine," certain magazine staff are getting the short end of the stick.

First, let me explain how Time's offering works. The consumer gets to pick five titles from the Time Inc. stable -- the largest in the business -- and soon that reader gets tailored issues pulling content (or stories, in the printed parlance) that matches his or her interests. 

Interested in the executive life? You'll probably get material from Time, Money, Golf, Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure. If you're more a fashionable jet-setter, perhaps a combination of Real Simple, InStyle, Travel + Leisure, Time and Golf. 

You get the idea.

Curiously, some titles that would match others are left out of the mix: Fortune. Coastal Living. People. Essence. Entertainment Weekly. Wallpaper*. Cooking Light. This Old House. Et cetera.

I suspect that decision is threefold: to avoid pillaging the company's entire portfolio; to keep subscribers of several magazines (it's likely that a Money subscriber already also gets Fortune; a similar possibility exists for Travel + Leisure and Coastal Living) subscribing to distinct publications; and to make sure that advertiser dollars are coming in without them trying to shortchange established rates for individual publications. 

Whatever the reason, though, I don't like it. It seems to be a massive convenience for the user, but it really takes away from the point of a magazine. And that's what gives me pause. 

Magazines are powerful because they are packages. Whereas newspapers are intended to deliver information quickly, magazines are intended to be leisurely read, analytical (or, at the very least, big picture) and a form of entertainment. They are less an information vehicle as a leisure activity, so much as information can be entertainment.

A big part of that "package" is the design, layout and story selection of the magazine. A big part of editors' (and publishers') jobs is to make sure that the magazine flows from cover to cover. It's not a piecemeal exercise. Magazines are, by their nature, a curated collection.

So while magazines a la carte seems appropriate in a world of RSS feeds and customizable content delivery, it's really at odds with the very nature of a magazine. It turns magazine content into, well, content -- separating it from the infrastructure that a magazine issue provides. And that's a problem for the editorial and business departments alike.

I've previously criticized magazines for not jumping on the Web sooner and in a better fashion. My argument was that they were missing a great branding opportunity, a great chance to extend the brand with far less overhead than a spinoff publication (Vogue Living, I'm looking at you). There's no reasonable limit to how much content can be produced on the Web. And the price of ink and paper doesn't even factor into it.

Of course, the challenge of the Web is in reproducing the perfected magazine form in a new medium. So when I look at this a la carte service -- which eschews planning altogether, reducing magazine content to words -- I cringe. 

And that's exactly what Time Inc.'s "Mine" is -- unplanned. It's offered to you in printed form or via online delivery to your inbox. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing either form (Time Inc. doesn't offer you a preview without you handing over all of your vitals), but I can't see it being a successful publication in its own right. The content is generally disconnected from itself, it may overlap and it, in all likelihood, has little flow to it. It's a very utilitarian approach, which is at odds with magazines as entertainment. They're simply not necessary to live. They're just nice to have.

The "Mine" endeavor smacks of marketing, and very little of editorial. There's nothing wrong with that on the face of it, but if the company wants to effectively create a new publication, it will need oversight. And it takes at least half a traditional magazine staff just to curate previously-published content in a way that it could fit together. Even then, the fit isn't perfect.

Above all, new endeavors must pass a simple litmus test: does it solve a problem? (Or does it make enough money that it doesn't matter?) I see neither of these options. By offering "Mine," Time Inc. is backhandedly shunning the work its editors and art directors for the (likely freelance) writers. It doesn't solve the magazines-on-the-Web problem; it doesn't solve the declining print circulation (and thus ad revenue/pages) problem. 

So what's a publishing house to do? Well, in a global economic downturn like this, it's to make sure its portfolio (and thus its staff) is lean and mean, both in printed and digital forms. "Mine" just strikes me as fatty excess, even though it appears to be a cost-saving way to reuse content.

With such limited appeal, exposure and choice on the part of the consumer, I doubt any "magazines à la carte" solution has the legs to stand the test of time. With "Mine," you can have it.

Tina Brown and the fight to save journalism

If you're a writer, get out of your comfort zone. 

If you're an editor, surround yourself with writers.

And if you're starting an online publication, do so with conviction. It will work.

Eventually.

Sage words from celebrated editor Tina Brown (Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Talk, and now The Daily Beast) last night at Columbia Journalism School's Delacorte Magazine Lecture, a weekly public lecture by notables in the publishing world put on by Victor Navasky of The Nation.

Brown's Daily Beast -- for which at least one friend of mine writes -- has been in the spotlight since its launch last fall. A new media venture by an old-media person, if you will.  An online pubication brave enough to not accept (interns aside) free work. A digital venture (questionably) backed by IAC's Barry Diller. 

But Brown revealed last night that the venture is very much her vehicle for figuring out how publishing can survive in a "free," online-only environment. Correction: not just survive, but thrive. And in this current state of media flux, it's exciting to me to know that someone is pursuing something with conviction, and not floundering about trying to stay afloat.

Highlights which I'd like to pass along to you, readers:

• Deploying narrative journalism on the web successfully is Brown's greatest challenge.
• The Daily Beast continues Brown's tradition of high/low coverage (or "class and trash," as I like to call it.)
• Some of her best writers didn't start as writers at all. Some of her best writers were passionate about topics they weren't writing about for a living. It was Brown's challenge -- and naturally, to her benefit -- to correct this. Example: Dominick Dunne, whom she told to keep a diary; Jeffrey Toobin, whom she simply gave enough time to develop his own (less-than-legalese) voice.
• Editors must "make their world writers," and surround themselves with them. They are immensely creative people, she said, and you must know their strengths and weaknesses and, of course, always have talent on hand.
• A big area for development is in-depth, feature-length business journalism. Not closing-bell coverage, but CEO profiles and such things. "Capture characters," she said. 
• The Daily Beast is doing what newsweeklies should be doing -- analysis and less breaking news coverage -- in the smart and intellectual way that Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report are struggling to transition to at the moment. But, with the added benefit of linking off to the best of the web's stories.
• The advantage of analysis: "People are gadflies, but they're also obsessives." So while hopping on the breaking news train is fine, people are still drawn to long-form, in-depth analysis telling them something they didn't already know.
• "A good editor (at least, one in the vein of Tina Brown -- Ed.) likes a strong staff around them." Strong as in personality: "I have a terrible weakness for irritants."
• Working online is actually less stressful/anxiety-ridden than print, because there are much fewer moments when someone's piece is cut because of limited space. "It's more physically grueling, but it's not as stressful in terms of disappointing people."
• "It's so fashionable to trash the press all the time."
• On the theory behind paying writers and investing in them: "You have to invest in people." Unlike her big-budget Conde Nast days, Brown can't hire writers on contract anymore, so the web environment makes it harder to develop people and give them a financial safety net at the same time. On the other hand, limitless space is helpful in that regard.
• 2009 is the year of the freelancer. "The Gig Economy," she called it.
• The Daily Beast has started to solicit advertisers, which will be its main revenue stream. Ads will appear in the spring.
• On outsourcing journalism: "I think it's preposterous." 

Before attending, I knew little of Brown. I knew she and Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post) were often cited as brash new editors-in-chief/publishers in the new media/online journalism world. I knew Brown had a fantastic pedigree. I knew she was British. 

But that's about it, honestly. So I was surprised when I heard these wise words come from someone who has been in the magazine business so long -- and who seemingly got into online publishing by necessity.

Brown spoke honestly and thoughtfully -- she wasn't there to publicize The Daily Beast, and didn't really reference it unless it was referred to in a question she was asked.

In listening to her opinions and advice, I came to respect her for this reason: she had a clear view of what she wanted and where she wanted it. An entrepreneur, she was pursuing publishing online, she wanted talented writers, she didn't want to cut corners nor spend funds happily. 

Personally, I don't like everything about The Daily Beast. (For one, I think its design, while adventurous, is a little hard to digest.). But I do now understand why things are the way they are on the site, and the thinking behind those decisions.

An old professor of mine likes to use the phrase, "Acts of commission, rather than acts of omission," when referencing online work. I can see that in operation at The Daily Beast.

Brown's vision may not be an ironclad business model, but it was her conviction that struck me. At a time when so many journalists -- newspapermen and women, freelance writers, editors, publishers, etc. -- are running to the next thing (blogs! Facebook! Twitter!) or just simply lamenting their own downfall (layoffs! cut pages! no ads!), I found it refreshing -- exciting, really -- to hear such a clear voice at such a cloudy time in journalism.

'Putting content on the Web would destroy our paper'

In today's New York Times, Media Equation columnist David Carr explains the story of the TriCityNews of Monmouth County, N.J., who he says has prospered by shunning the Web entirely:

"Why would I put anything on the Web?” asked Dan Jacobson, the publisher and owner of the newspaper. “I don’t understand how putting content on the Web would do anything but help destroy our paper. Why should we give our readers any incentive whatsoever to not look at our content along with our advertisements, a large number of which are beautiful and cheap full-page ads?"

Which, given the current state of media affairs, is a shocking pronouncement.

Carr elaborates on his column, describing a way of thinking that is best summed up as, "if it works, work it." He mentions John Koblin's New York Observer piece (perhaps this one, though Carr's article sadly and ironically doesn't link) describing how business magazine competitors Forbes, Portfolio and Fortune went through layoffs, with the Web getting hit the hardest. He mentions popular new media poster boy Nick Denton of Gawker Media, who predicted a 40 percent decline in Web display advertising.

Carr's solution in this week's media equation? "It's probably not a great time to be indexing into the Web either."

In other words, he doesn't really digest it at all.

David Carr is a smart guy. I've been lucky enough to meet the guy a few years back, before the book, back when the Carpetbagger was a new phenomenon.

But I don't think he quite solved this equation.

While his column is lean, and his space limited to explain nuance behind the situation, I really don't think he adequately explains the references he draws between very different types of publications. For example:

When it comes to brand advertising, print has a strong track record. Advertisers like the analog presentation in TriCityNews for the same reason they come back in droves to Vogue.

Well that's a real tough connection to draw. The TriCityNews is a local newspaper; Vogue is a national luxury fashion magazine. TriCityNews' advertisers are local and faithful; Vogue's advertisements are a part of a major campaign -- and when times are tough, luxury retailers pull back in a big way. Vogue has the advantage of being a glossy magazine, in which nearly nothing is "news" by any stretch of the imagination. And while I don't know anything about TriCityNews beyond the scope of this article, it seems to be a local neighborhood rag more for local interest than breaking news. And I suspect -- correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Jacobsen -- that advertising doesn't fluctuate nearly as much as Vogue's, which, by the way, is often sold as an advertising package alongside sibling mags such as Glamour and W.

My point is this: To connect the lessons learned from this small publication that "the Web is to be avoided" to the larger media landscape -- even if only inadvertently implied by the very publication of Carr's article -- is to be misleading.

Let's look at some of the references:

The business magazines: All three mentioned are owned by major magazine houses (Forbes is Forbes, Portfolio is Conde Nast, Fortune is Time Inc.), and all three bring in luxury advertisers to a degree. Forbes has been in need of reinvention for awhile, and its website is hard on the eyes. Portfolio is a new magazine that never quite distinguished itself among the pack and whose publisher deliberately avoided investing online. Fortune is a Time flagship magazine but whose CNNMoney.com website is popular but woefully underused as a confusing catch-all pot for Money and Fortune's material.

Gawker Media: A collection of upstart blogs, Gawker is popular in major metropolitan areas (especially New York) but not much elsewhere. Gawker sites generally rely on being "first" in a string of reposting of news articles from other sources. Occasionally the sites have original commentary -- Denton himself contributes the site's most digested thought and Hamilton Nolan often comments just with his selection of stories -- but generally, it's a site that thrives on being the online trendsetter. Advertising has been experimental throughout the sites' lifetimes; Denton hasn't really settled on a system for more than a year's time and any sites that don't work from a financial standpoint are quickly spun off (Consumerist, Wonkette, etc.), no matter how popular.

The Wall Street Journal: Big media newspaper whose site, unlike almost all, including the Times, charges for most access. Paid subscriptions are up 7 percent from a year ago, and the implication is that with advertisements down, it's easier to get money from the readers themselves.

So my point is that it's unfair to lump together, even in passing reference, a family of breaking news and commentary bloga that exist only online, three magazines with different root problems (but the same financial symptoms) and a local city paper whose readership simply doesn't use the Web to read truly local news. Contrasting that with the sole exception in the news business -- the WSJ, whose rabidly loyal and wealthy readership continues to pay up front -- seems to be even more misleading.

(And for the record, when I want to read a Wall Street Journal article that's behind the pay wall, I just go without. The Times usually has a similar treatment to a story anyway.)

When you read any article, the first thing you should ask yourself is "why?" As in, "what is the point of this?" Usually, it's general interest, or news, or contextual.

I read this column looking for the big "So what?" and all I got were contradictory anecdotes. I didn't get an equation -- I got an expression.

Which may have been Carr's intent -- to say, look at this one publisher in the midst of others! But what I fear is that the lesson implied by the article is that the Web isn't quite the Holy Grail publishers should be chasing after. And for that, I disagree -- perhaps a tiny local paper need not use the Web (though having contact information and subscription information would be useful) for its news content, but all the other national publications must, just by their very nature.

To boot, I think the economy came a little to early in the print-to-Web transition, and with funds at risk, people are pulling back into something that's comfortable: the print business model. All of these publications, be it newspapers or magazines or online, have had 10 years or more to really sit down and think about the Web as a new business model. And yet so many have failed to think outside of the box. So it's a matter of confidence: when the money's at risk, they slash online staff, thinking that those readers and the staff that write for them are worth less to the publication. And that's true. But they're worth more to the brand and its future, and that's the misstep I see happening.

After all, if we're counting pennies, pixels are a lot cheaper than paper.

Why You're Losing Your Magazine Job

Magazine behemoths such as Time Inc. and Conde Nast (and Hearst, more quietly) have been slashing staffers and budgets in large numbers recently.

The reason? The economic downtown.

Or is it?

AllThingsD's Peter Kafka notes in a new post that publishing houses are also shedding ad dollars left and right, indicated in this graph from MediaPost, which is based off ad sales data from magazine trade publisher Media Industry Newsletter:

The problem? It's not just the steep decline of ad pages due to the recession -- no, it's because magazines were running flat even before the decline, thanks to a fundamental shift of ad dollars away from print and toward the Web.

In other words, magazines were barely getting by as it was, and an economic throttling just sunk an already barely-seaworthy vessel.

Remember two and a half years ago when I asked why newspapers were beating glossies to the punch on the Web? In that article, I lamented the ill-preparedness of magazine publishers in their Web dealings: flashy but poor "destination" sites with poor usability and poor brand representation that served only as subscription centers, rather than as logical extensions of the brand with original content (CondeNet, I'm looking at you).

Now it looks like magazine companies are finally paying the price for their (expensive but ineffective) dabbling.

Or, in other words: that's what you get when you only have one full-time staffer ("Web editor") for a magazine's entire online presence.

So should magazine editors contemplate an online-only career? Maybe -- it's not clear, because the magazine as a vehicle for content still has the tangible value: the bring-it-into-the-bathroom factor (a factor not as strong as it used to be).

Logically, then, I expect magazines to go on a decline, but not bottom out. Unlike newspapers, who peddle breaking content (strictly, "news"), magazines peddle much more design and commentary. So while daily newspapers will gravitate toward analysis to keep their printed product afloat, magazines already have a safety net in the basic nature of their product.

So what about magazine jobs?

It still doesn't look good. Kafka writes:

"It's unclear how many jobs the Web is going to offer, since digital content is worth so much less than its analog counterpart, at least in the eyes of advertisers."

But that's quickly changing, since there are so many more eyeballs on the Web. As circulation numbers steadily decline, advertisers will gradually place more value in the Web, and publications would be wise to encourage that. After all, there are no printing costs (just hosting), and overhead is so much lower thanks to almost-free distribution.

There are even rumors confirming such things: For example, the dissolution of men.style.com (for which I've previously expressed my disgust) and the launch of distinct sites for GQ and Details.

But that still doesn't replace the original magazine, and in that way, the website will forever be an extension of the original (printed) brand.

Still, I blame magazine publishers for not being prescient enough. For example, have you seen the website for T, The New York Times Magazine? It's not perfect by any means, but it's an innovative way to make a website stylistically mirror the printed publication. There are several highfalutin publications that see T as a competitor. Why not also one on the web?

So where does that leave the magazine editor?

Well, start polishing that resume and brushing up on your HTML -- if you don't know what CMS stands for, you're just as much in trouble as the editorial assistant who hasn't heard of Adobe InDesign.

Everything You Know About Magazine Covers Is Wrong.

...at least that's what seasoned publishing exec Steve Blacker says, who wrote a fabulous and acute study of magazine covers that I pulled from MinOnline.

There's been a nice healthy amount of magazine-focused stories lately, and this is a great lesson for magazine editors-to-be and really, all creative types, editorial or visual.

Some highlights:

1. The more time spent working, planning, and strategizing on a cover, the better it will be. Too many editors put their covers together at the last moment. Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Kate White, who will celebrate her 10th anniversary in August, plans her covers a year in advance.

4. The cover image. You should be constantly testing "out of the box": think the Esquire legend George Lois; think cover images. To test the "same old" will just replicate the "same old" in sales. If something seems too "out there," then do an "in market" test in 30% of the country.

6. Are you overwhelming the buyer with too many cover lines? Research has shown that crowded covers are often stated as the reason an impulse buyer did not purchase a current issue.

8. Is your editor-in-chief the best person to be orchestrating the creation of your cover? Many top editors are not top cover creators, nor cover-line writers. Why not bring in a George Lois, Milton Glaser, or Steve Frankfurt? Have them produce some alternate covers and test them in market.

The bottom line? Covers are supposed to sell the magazine. So why aren't we working harder on them?

And an even better question: Why aren't we considering the same strategies for magazine websites?

How ESPN's Fawning Sports Coverage Makes Sports Illustrated Look Like The Economist

Pulled straight from my RSS feed a few minutes ago:

Report: Favre sends text message to Packers GM

Now I know the Brett Favre-Packers saga has a lot of people's minds and hearts in it -- plus, football-wise, it's a golden series of stories -- but this is ridiculous.

And no, it's not just a copy editor's headline flub, either. Here's the third graf of the story:

But WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee reported Monday that Favre sent a text message to Packers GM Ted Thompson on Saturday -- and that Thompson's reply was that he is on vacation and the two men will have to talk later.

Seriously, guys, just because you have to cover the story closely until there's an outcome doesn't mean I need to read every second.

If You're In Charge Of Designing A Publication's Website, Read This Post.

A wonderfully talented colleague of mine passed along this interview with the web designer for Monocle, a fabulous internationally-minded magazine that has embraced the web with zeal. In it, the designer, Dan Hill, shows the sketches and thinking behind a magazine designing for the web.

(It's a long read, but worth every inch -- if you're the impatient type, skip to where the first images of the home page begin.)

One thought in particular showed how Monocle sets itself apart from the, ahem, bigger publishing houses in the U.S.:

Thus we were doing the opposite of what most magazine-driven brands when they turn to the internet (often as an afterthought). The obvious choice is to plonk all the magazine editorial online, and augment with a few editors' blogs and such-like. At first glance, we were effectively letting the print material reside where it is best experienced - in the tactile format of the magazine - and instead exploring new facets of the brand with a broadcast-led website. But wanting to have our cake and eat it, the magazine material is there too, just reformatted for the web and immersed in a new navigational framework, appropriate to its new context.

Afterward follows diagrams and explanations: why a certain layout, why certain fonts, why certain choices and under what kind of constraints instituted by the better-known print product:

I inherited a fairly full worked through corporate identity, with typeface choice (generally, Plantin, Helvetica Neue, and Hoefler + Frere-Jones's Strasse from Numbers; all quite beautiful), a 4-way colour-scheme, a strong grid-based structure, and all the small detail elements - end marks, pull quote styles, maps, oldstyle numerals, a Monocle mark as well as typographic treatment of the logo, and so on - that the architecture of a magazine supplies. Further, the identity extended into paper bookmarks, envelopes, letterheads, and the nicest cardboard DVD wallets I’ve ever seen.

The challenge was to translate all that for the internet - something I've done many times before, working with the music or broadcast industries, but I'd never done with a monthly magazine.

The same goes for generating content for the web. So many magazines use their website as an incomplete content dump, never really offering their backlog of content but still making it seem like it's a seriously complex site. Monocle went the other way:

In terms of rhythm of updates, we deliberately decided less is more, and flying in the face of conventional wisdom (if you can have wisdom in a medium only a decade old) we produced editorial at a steady rate - essentially a well-made film or two per week - rather than bombarding the user with content. Deciding to filter, reflect and craft rather than immerse the user in a constant flow of data in lieu of information. Again, this was difficult for some to get their heads around, and we certainly have aspirations to increase the frequency to include a snappy daily bulletin, but this sense of quiet calm exuding from Monocle was another important statement: that you don’t have to clutter websites with every possible bit of information you can. And that - particularly for the busy people that enjoy Monocle - information overload is not something we wished to contribute to.

And, of course, making stylistic choices that convey the greater message and brand of the publication:

Visually, we wanted to make something that didn't ape current design tropes - the boring, over-used and essentially art-less 'web 2.0 look' of bright palletes, gradient fills and rounded corners - but had a more classical view, as befitting something a little more grown up. Richard Spencer Powell said the magazine design draws from modernism, of course (especially North and Mittel European heritage) but also looks further back into the early 20thC, and beyond the simple serifs and vogue for ornamentation, but look at the engravings, section headers, cartographic styles etc.

So the last thing we needed was a bevelled/shaded button style in yellow or fuscia.

And, finally, the hot topic of the moment -- how to successfully engage readers with user-generated content like comments and the like (the approach may surprise you):

In terms of user generated content, or user discussion of Monocle pieces, my view was that we didn't need comments on the site as people increasingly have their own spaces to talk, discuss, comment - whether that's blogs and discussion fora, or the social software of Facebook et al. So a more progressive approach would be to ensure that everything is linkable and kept online - with clean, permanent URL structures - thus encouraging people to point to articles from the comfort of their own sites. At some point, we could begin to aggregate responses to Monocle editorial, Technorati-style, perhaps...overall, this seemed a more mature approach to handling this brand, and the increasingly sophisticated environment online. It's meant we don't have to carry moderation costs, which I knew could be expensive, yet still trigger conversation. Towards the end of the year, a site described Monocle as "the most blogged about magazine", so part of that strategy would seem to be working.

I think there are some incredibly valuable lessons to be had here, and all designers for the web ought to be thinking about these issues in depth. Given recent discussion on this blog, Mark Potts and Avenue A | Razorfish, I'm looking at you with a friendly gaze; but I'm also looking at every online editor and the higher-ups that constrain their efforts at Condé Nast, Hearst, Time, Hachette, Meredith, Rodale, and so forth.

Because honestly: I know The New Yorker site won the 2008 National Magazine Award for General Excellence, but let's be honest -- can sites like that (clean content dumps with unimaginative architecture) and the insanely cluttered sites of men.style.com or even New York magazine's site really hold a candle to the clean lines, forward-thinking, mature site of Monocle?

I don't think so.

To me, they just look three steps behind.

Why Aren't Magazines Themselves On The Web? A Letter To Publishers.

Every time I visit a magazine's website, I'm disappointed.

Why?

Because I don't get the same experience that I appreciate getting as a reader of the print publication.

Normally, that's fine. The success of a magazine's website isn't to emulate the print publication. It can't, too, since it's generally accepted that magazines can't be as easily replaced as newspapers in an online format.

So why am I disappointed, then?

Because most magazines' websites are cluttered. Obscenely so. Ads scream at you "above the fold" and keep on screaming until the fifth or sixth scroll down. Featured articles are rarely featured. Less-than-quality content is given the same weight as the cover story. And for God's sake, I don't even know where I am on this damn website.

Get what I'm saying? Magazine websites don't feature their content the way they do in the printed format. And that is what I think makes a magazine so enjoyable to read in the first place.

I understand that most big-time publishers haven't put "enough resources" (as their web editors might say under their collective breath) toward the development of the online platform. They pay for a template, a content management system, and a couple peoples' salaries to keep the thing going. The focus is still on the moneymaker -- the printed magazine. And I get that.

But they're hurting themselves so very much.

A website is the online face of the magazine. For most, it looks as if that face has way, way too much makeup. The problem with this is, despite a lack of significant ad revenue, there are on average five times as many readers online as there are for the printed publication. Five times as many eyeballs -- which means a vast majority who don't subscribe to the site (there is, on average, about 10-20 percent overlap with the printed publication). And what do these readers have to greet them?

An information overload, a vague identity and no reason to subscribe. When online subscriptions cost the publisher the least amount of money, what benefit is that, exactly?

Let's take an example of a magazine I read regularly: New York, a weekly publication.

The magazine serves a distinct purpose as a "in-the-know" magazine for a wide swath of audience living in the New York area. It's service-y, it's big-J journalism-y, it's trashy, it's classy.

In the printed pages, it's easy to see why New York wins all the National Magazine Awards. In terms of stories, the writing's usually top-notch, and when it isn't, they make the best they can of it with great art or infographics. In terms of design, the typography is fantastic, the use of white space is daring and it's distinctive. On the whole, it just drips the New York identity. Which it's supposed to.

But on the web -- even though it's come a long way recently -- it's a complete overload. The typography is there -- unusual for most magazines -- but there's no white space in sight. Ads fight for stories. The cover stories are not always the featured story -- and New York offers almost all of its content free on the web (most national magazines do not). It obliterates my senses -- in a bad way.

I like the New York magazine website, but I much prefer it on my RSS reader. That way, I don't have socialites and Diane Von Furstenberg ads fighting for eyeball attention with the latest story about John McCain. About the only part of the website I can stomach for long is the restaurant reviews, which aren't littered with as much distraction. The Intelligencer blog is wonderful, but it can't hold my eye too long before the ads and other stories overcome my attention.

The worst part about this is that, compared to other national and regional magazines, New York's website is fairly ahead of the game. About the only websites it can't compete with in terms of sheer usefulness are tech-centric magazines, whose audience is a natural transition from print to web (and in fact, they probably fight to move online readers to the printed publication and not the other way around).

But take a look at some national magazine websites: Vogue. InStyle. O, The Oprah Magazine. Elle. Esquire. The list goes on. On them all, their identities are not distinct. Your eyeball is having a hard time adjusting with each passing second. And if you already have something in mind to find, forget it. Have you ever tried to find a specific piece of content on the GQ website? It's like pulling your own teeth with a skinny striped silk-knit tie, sans anesthesia. Jesus.

Magazines, it seems, have given up on the idea that they can drive traffic from the website to the printed publication. And I think that's baloney -- so long as bigwigs give up the notion that such migration will only happen if people will come from the website to the printed publication for the exact same reason.

The website serves a purpose. The magazine also serves a purpose. They should be distinct; but they shouldn't be so different that the other wouldn't be attractive to read. In other words, we should think less in an "either/or" fashion and more in a "primary/secondary." Some of our readers are first printed edition readers, than online edition readers. Some are the opposite.

Many of our most celebrated national magazines have spent years and incalculable amounts of money marketing and positioning the mission of their magazine portfolio. Why aren't we doing the same for each publication's website?

For all of the labyrinthine webpages that magazine websites have, they sure can't manage their own content well. It's embarrassing. Really, they're ignoring the lessons they spent a century figuring out: how to draw and direct the eye with typography. How to keep it trained on something with white space. How to exude identity with design cues and pacing. Online, there is none of this. About the only thing that's the same is the writing, and I bet someone could make an argument that the online-exclusive content pales in comparison to the editorial triumph that the printed version has.

To bring it back to New York with a recent example: Why wasn't a nude Lindsay Lohan-as-Marilyn Monroe front and center for the last week and a half? She's your big moneymaker, right? The placement of her 100-by-200 pixels link was admirable, but the vast majority of the website's readers came for her recently. It took me two extra clicks to get to Lindsay, and when I got there, there was nothing on that page to take me elsewhere once I was done browsing the photo shoot. The original link that I described above should have been the one used to reap leftover traffic once the weekly switches content; not as the primary directive.

I'm the reader. Don't make me work.

Sure, magazine websites are still in their infancy. But I'd say that they're really in their teenage years -- misdirected, trying to be someone (everyone) else, and ignoring their own notable qualities.

'Generation U': Why Time Reporters Just Wrote Their Own Career Obituaries

We're still catching up on important news this week, and one of the more interesting tidbits was a recent Women's Wear Daily report saying that Time Inc. print reporters won't be forced to do online work, thanks to a contract clause proposed by the Newspaper Guild.

Apparently, the two parties reached a tentative agreement for a three-year contract that includes guaranteed annual pay raises, and changes to severance packages and other benefits to Guild-protected employees -- but one of the additions is a stipulation that prevents management from demanding that print reporters must write for the Web.

(The magazines under Guild protection include People, Time, Fortune, Fortune Small Business, Sports Illustrated and Money.)

The Editorialiste asks: Can Time Inc. journalists make a bigger mistake?

As Columbia new media spokesman and writing-for-the-web guru Sree Sreenivasan said to me on Monday, "It's backwards. The guild might be making a mistake."

And I couldn't agree more.

Say what you want about new media, generations of journalists and the decline of printed readership, but it's looking to me as if Time Inc. professionals are swimming against the ever-strengthening stream of progress. But that's the obvious take on the news.

What I really want to know is: How exactly is this supposed to mesh with the 84-year-old flagship magazine's attempt to stay relevant in a 24-hour, wired, online news cycle?

When the flagship magazine slims down and takes contract work over full-time salaries, that sends a message that the time of the cubicle-embedded journalist is nearing an end. So when the journalists themselves turn around and say that they don't want to be a part of this "new movement," are they not hypocritical -- and furthermore, writing their own career obits?

It seems to me that this contract is two steps forward, three steps back. For every guaranteed annual raise and benefits package, each journalist is effectively saying, "Keep me comfortable for the rest of my career here, please, at the expense of the publication and my generation." All Time Inc. seems to have to do is wait it out until each journalist drops dead, phasing out the "resistant generation" and gladly handing the iconic magazine over to a new generation of technophiles for which writing for the web is the norm.

Of course, this will all happen, in say, 20 years -- when doing so will seem old hat and fitting of Time's reputation. But is this really the way to conduct business -- leaving (ironically) time to shape a publication and company?

I don't think so. Time Inc. employees, it's time to wise up -- buy yourself a laptop and a digital camera and learn how to do what the rest of the U.S. already does.

The New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman wrote today about "Generation Q" -- a "quiet" generation of idealistic college students who aren't into political or social activism. I beg the question -- are Time Inc. employees a part of journalism's "Generation U" -- Generation Unplug?

Newspapers Aren't Essential, And Other Reasons Why This Week's Bivings Report On Magazines And The Web Is Flawed

Magazines are slower at adopting Web 2.0 trends than newspapers, according to a recent Bivings Report study and a post on this blog eons ago.

The study's authors write, via Romenesko:

"We can hypothesize that this is due to the differing cultures surrounding the two types of print media: newspapers and the content they present are essential to most people's daily lives. In contrast most magazines are something 'extra,' and are often focused on entertainment."

Wait a second, newspapermen: Since when is newspaper content by definition more essential to most people's lives than magazines?

Now I'm not here to fight the magazine fight, and I could sit here for hours and write about how much the "duh" factor comes in about magazine websites becoming full of unique content. But it looks to me like the study's authors are taking it for granted that newspapers are essential.

In a study that makes claims based on data, there's little data to support this. Why do most Americans need the newspaper? And what exactly is defined by "a newspaper"?

In my opinion, it can be argued, reasonably, that everything past the front page section of the newspaper (plus the figures from the business and sports sections) is entertainment. Top feature writer Paula Span said to me last week that feature writing is nearly half of all the writing in a newspaper. And nowhere is it more evident than the front section pages of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, the Washington Post, all the way down to your local rag.

Now feature writing and "entertainment" aren't exactly coterminous, but you can see where I'm going with this. A good portion of your daily newspaper is the same fodder that runs in a magazine. So I take objection to this assumption in the Bivings study.

So what, then? How do you explain the slow migration by glossies to the Web?

One word: Pictures.

Magazines thrive on images, and the Web is a text-driven vehicle, no matter how much you dress it up with images and video. Magazines, on the other hand, thrive on their artwork. The tangible nature of having that in your hands -- which I'm sure lends itself some perceived value -- is a good bet as to why magazines generally didn't see the need to run to the Web.

It boils down to this: The Web can replace a newspaper. But it can only supplement a magazine. And that's why I've never received a paper copy of The New York Times in my mailbox but I receive a small handful of monthly glossies.

It's not the entertainment content. It's the format.