Really a masterful series of insights here. Maybe I just set my sights too high after that great party post yesterday. Then again, maybe I didn't. Some posts are going to be better, just like some are going to be worse. Having high hopes could have led to me getting smoked. Then again, I thought it was worth the gamble.
But you never know. How much would I pay to read Gawker right now? I don't have an e-reader. But am I less likely to come back? Changing that dynamic is what Gawker needs to worry about.
Ha: "Today, four prestigious magazine publishers, and News Corp..." Appreciate Murdoch's not in the mag biz, but still qualifies as a veiled swipe in my book - er, tablet/slate/e-thingy.
I only know what's in the post and under the link and yes, my initial instinct was to make a Pathfinder joke.
But I don't see why this couldn't complement a publication's website and perhaps provide them with some extra income.
Off the top of my head - A lot of magazine sites don't include the pretty pictures and this appears to let them to publish in the original layout.
Right now it's just the big boys, but if they open it up to smaller publications, it could be a boon for them.
I know that I sometimes see something on Hulu that's on a network, I don't get, so I'll sample it. The same could be true with this service, though it may sound a little like Pathfinder, but a one-stop electronic newsstand could introduce someone to a tiny publication from a regional source.
And though it may not be part of the current thinking, but if they make some of the additional advertising location-aware, they'll have another source of income, they can't access right now. Not to mention that adding location info to their formally static ads could give their sales a needed boost.
(For example, A Starbucks ad could include a map to the nearest location or a Holiday Inn Express advertisement could list those on the road ahead.)
@Magister: PS) Location-aware advertising could also open up untapped ad markets. Right now, there's not a lot of supermarket ads in magazines because supermarkets are regional, but if the magazine knew where you were in the country, they could serve you whatever Kroger division is nearby.
(Though of course, your e-reader would have to know where you are)
You shouldn't let the horrible buzz words make you too bearish on the e-Reader versions of magazines. What magazine people are good at -- making pretty packages out of words and pictures over the course of days, weeks and months -- has never translated well to the web. The magazine publishers' various stabs at creating ways to sell digital versions of their work to people with shiny new e-Readers represent a much more promising path to survival than anything newspapers have come up with.
@Gabriel Snyder: A valiant effort, for sure. But I'm not convinced. In some ways, it seems a lot like they're trying to sell me a glossy .pdf. And that did not work the last time. However, if they start shutting down their sites in favor of e-reader content, that could be a huge shift. But competing against the web is never a safe bet. Someone can turn mediocre content into a huge numbers game just by offering it up for free.
I feel like we're going back to the future with all this stuff. I don't think anyone's going to pay for digital mags unless they sell it in bundled packages with a lot of other titles. The problem, again, is competing with up to the minute content on the web.
@lukeoneil47: Exactly; I don't pay enough for magazines to start looking for a cheaper way to get them, and an e-reader doesn't look nearly as intriguing on coffee table. (Or maybe it does, but I'm not letting my guests get their grubby hands on it.)
@DahlELama: Yeah but you might not have much of a choice in the future. Magazines are going to be newsstand or electronic. I don't think you will be able to get cheap print subscriptions any more.
@triplethreat: Interesting; that's definitely a perspective I haven't heard yet. What's the advantage to getting rid of the subscription model as long as the issues are still being created in print?
@DahlELama: Print subs are basically a loss and getting more so--they are super cheap in order to keep the rate base up, but are increasing in cost as printing prices, postal rates, and gas prices rise. Better to print just a few copies to sell at newsstand for those who really want the "object experience" (I made that term up) and put the rest of your energy into developing web audience and revenue models.
I think music will go same way. I mean, why make a CD? People would rather download. But a fancy vinyl box set? They will buy.
The Fox outrage was actually committed years ago, when they lambasted the guy for telling the truth. What they did more recently is perfectly fine. I mean, hypocritical in context, but not particularly outrageous, especially since it's just so par for their course.
Whereas if this TN mayor is actually for real, Jesus is hurling as we speak.
Prevented from watching the Peanuts Xmas Special, I must conclude that Jesus wasn't The Son O' God. If the news pre-empts the Year Without a Santa Claus , I might even lose faith in the existence of a Heat Miser.
@iplaudius: @Lysergic Asset: Great calls. And yet there's so much more! — there's the Magi connection (I mean, is the mayor bringin' the myrrh?) and the fact that Wiseman is typically a Jewish surname, is it not?
I swear, this is just comedy gold. And comedy frankincense.
@AzureTexan: Yep, that's what I meant about "blowing the Christian supremacy thing" - I had a good friend with that last name and I attended her bat mitzvah. Of course, now I see that this troglodyte is also blowing the Christian supremacy thing with his abject stupidity.
Of course, what he really meant to say was, "I resent this brilliant black man who somehow became President, because he doesn't have a slave name, he's half white and he demonstrates the best "practice what you preach" principles of the God I pretend to follow. His excellence constantly reminds me that I am noting more than a self-loathing Jew who will never amount to more than mayor of a town made up of 3000 card carrying members of the KKK."
@Lysergic Asset: Yes, I read your "Christian supremacy" comment slightly differently than you had intended, but the point — both points, re: supremacy — still hold.
As for the KKK: I'm sure Arlington, like any place, has some great people, but yes indeed, it's just a couple hundred miles from Pulaski, Tennessee, birthplace of the Klan.
I keep hoping we've left that history behind, but it keeps rearing its pointy-white-hooded head, doesn't it.
@AzureTexan: As I said, I think the fact that Obama's mother is white and the fact that he has an African name - in other words, his family was not owned by any of the ancestors of the white right-wingers who so loathe him - are the things that are most viscerally agonizing to the racists.
Please check this out for some comic relief: it's The Daily Show's Larry Wilmore talking to kids about the fact that whites will be a minority in the U.S. by 2050. Sooo funny! [www.thedailyshow.com]
Everybody knows it's actually the Jews who are constantly trying to kill xmas. Maybe the Muslims and them can finally bond over trying to stop Charlie Brown.
Assuming some of you Garofalos work in media it's disheartening and predictable to see you mock and ridicule one of your industry's brightest hopes for a future in digital.
Not the second round of layoffs at Newseum. At least the third- but don't ask me how I know. They'll come after me but they won't kill me. They'll just force me to watch their "4D" movie until my eyes are pinwheels and I'm sobbing on the floor like Nellie Bly's asylum-mates.
12/08/09
But you never know. How much would I pay to read Gawker right now? I don't have an e-reader. But am I less likely to come back? Changing that dynamic is what Gawker needs to worry about.
12/08/09
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But I don't see why this couldn't complement a publication's website and perhaps provide them with some extra income.
Off the top of my head - A lot of magazine sites don't include the pretty pictures and this appears to let them to publish in the original layout.
Right now it's just the big boys, but if they open it up to smaller publications, it could be a boon for them.
I know that I sometimes see something on Hulu that's on a network, I don't get, so I'll sample it. The same could be true with this service, though it may sound a little like Pathfinder, but a one-stop electronic newsstand could introduce someone to a tiny publication from a regional source.
And though it may not be part of the current thinking, but if they make some of the additional advertising location-aware, they'll have another source of income, they can't access right now. Not to mention that adding location info to their formally static ads could give their sales a needed boost.
(For example, A Starbucks ad could include a map to the nearest location or a Holiday Inn Express advertisement could list those on the road ahead.)
12/08/09
(Though of course, your e-reader would have to know where you are)
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I think music will go same way. I mean, why make a CD? People would rather download. But a fancy vinyl box set? They will buy.
12/05/09
There is this thing called 'founder's effect'. Look it up.
12/04/09
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Mmm, fudge factores.
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Dixie Carter, Bettie Page, Tina Turner and Dinah Shore are all from Tennessee.
And cigarettes are still cheap.
12/04/09
His spirit, anyhoo.
12/04/09
The Fox outrage was actually committed years ago, when they lambasted the guy for telling the truth. What they did more recently is perfectly fine. I mean, hypocritical in context, but not particularly outrageous, especially since it's just so par for their course.
Whereas if this TN mayor is actually for real, Jesus is hurling as we speak.
12/04/09
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I swear, this is just comedy gold. And comedy frankincense.
12/04/09
Of course, what he really meant to say was, "I resent this brilliant black man who somehow became President, because he doesn't have a slave name, he's half white and he demonstrates the best "practice what you preach" principles of the God I pretend to follow. His excellence constantly reminds me that I am noting more than a self-loathing Jew who will never amount to more than mayor of a town made up of 3000 card carrying members of the KKK."
12/04/09
As for the KKK: I'm sure Arlington, like any place, has some great people, but yes indeed, it's just a couple hundred miles from Pulaski, Tennessee, birthplace of the Klan.
I keep hoping we've left that history behind, but it keeps rearing its pointy-white-hooded head, doesn't it.
12/04/09
Please check this out for some comic relief: it's The Daily Show's Larry Wilmore talking to kids about the fact that whites will be a minority in the U.S. by 2050. Sooo funny! [www.thedailyshow.com]
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