How the Venerable Atlantic Changed for the Digital Age

The Atlantic, an issues-oriented magazine that was founded 153 years and in recent years has been a consistent money loser, is on track to turn a tidy profit of $1.8 million this year. Jeremy Peters of The New York Times suggests that the reason the magazine has turned itself around relates to a decision of its young management to attach their property to the web enthusiastically at a time when major magazine firms were still wary about hurting their print product. So, for example, in a move rare in the magazine industry the publisher told the advertising sales staff that it did not matter whether they sold ads for the digital or printed edition.

The Atlantic reduced its staff and made other monetary accommodations that are allowing it to prosper in the digital world. Moreover, Peters notes that this periodical with less than half a million circulation and an entire business and editorial staff of about one hundred can break even at levels lower than the big magazines produced by the likes of Time and Conde Nast. Nevertheless, the developments point to the activities periodicals must consider to survive in the new media environment.

From Jeremy W. Peters, "Web Focus Helps Revitalize the Atlantic," New York Times, December 12, 2010. Thanks for Scott Weiss of St. Francis College for suggesting this piece for the blog.

Google Fast Flip Rethinks the Magazine

There's no grand plan here, nothing more to this other than learning.

-Martin Nisenholtz, Senior VP of Operations, New York Times

In Staci D. Kramer, "Google Fast Flip Goes Live," PaidContent.Org, September 15, 2009

Google Labs released an experimental program it calls Fast Flip, the purpose of which is to allow users to quickly move ("flip") through the first pages of various articles in newspapers and magazines that Google's software has arranged by topic. What makes this different from Google News or from simply using Google to search for a topic is that Fast Flip allows readers to actually read the first page of an article before having to wait for it to load. If the reader likes it, he or she can continue by clicking so that the whole thing comes onto the screen. If the reader doesn't want to read that one but wants to stay with the theme, the reader can move to the next article which also has the first page visible for easy reading.

Google secured the permission of many web publishers so that it could use their pages and logos directly on the Fast Flip main page instead of having text links to them. Google also agreed to share any future advertising revenue with the publishers if they place Google-brokered ads on the pages that show up on Fast Flip. As the Times' Nisenholtz notes, though, at this point the venture is experimental, not moneymaking.

Just as Google News encourages people to rethink the meaning of a newspaper and its potential for personalization, so Google Fast Flip promises to challenge the meaning of a magazine by unmooring articles from their original locations, displaying them in a page-flip manner with articles on a similar topic, and even allowing people to personalize this process and share it with others. Traditional magazine firms will watch this development nervously. Depending on how big they are and how they react, it may eventually help or hurt their bottom line.

Hearst Magazine Sings Online

The Jango partnership is the first step in a larger strategy that will add more entertainment-focused content to all the Hearst Digital sites, which in turn creates compelling opportunities for advertisers to participate.

-Chris Johnson, Hearst Digital vice president of content and business development

Johnson is reflecting on Hearst magazines' announcement of a partnership with social music website Jango to place music widgets on Seventeen.com and brand them with both the Hearst and Jango names. "Seventeen will allow readers to create personal online “radio stations” featuring songs from their favorite musicians. They can listen to the music directly at Seventeen.com and can share their stations, also called Celebrity DJ Jukeboxes, with other readers over a social networking application." The activity demonstrates how magazines are changing from their static paper incarnations to become active lifestyle centers and tools for their audiences and advertisers. To Ann Shoket, Seventeen's editor-in-chief, the music-widget application “helps the Seventeen brand live beyond the pages of the magazine. . . ." Johnson adds that this sort of entertainment-focused content "creates compelling opportunities for advertisers to participate."

In Jason Fell, "Hearst Launches Widgets for Seventeen," Folio, May 5, 2008

Ad Inserts Help Magazines Compete with Web

For us, it’s be clever or die.

-Peter King Hunsinger, publisher of the magazine GQ

He was referring to "blinking lights, pop-up ads, kiss-on lipstick samples, scratch-off scents, melt-in-your-mouth taste strips and even pocket squares, [that] advertisers are stuffing magazines full of . . . to make their advertisements stand out."

In Stephanie Clifford, "More Bells, Whistles and Packets of All Sorts," The New York Times, April 22, 2008.