Is this the future of magazine publishing? Probably not, but it’s still interesting

The Magazineer has put up an interesting post about MagCloud, a print-on-demand service designed specifically for magazines. The content available so far isn’t particularly inspiring, but the idea itself is quite interesting.

But there’s still something about paper. It’s not just because screens suck to read on (they do, but that hasn’t kept us from doing it all day). There is an intimacy about a good book, a pleasure to the glossy pages of magazines, and, ironically, a permanence to paper. (How many times has a website you really loved simply disappeared?)

So what if we could combine the best parts of the web (no waste, personalized content, open to all) with the best parts of print (sexy print quality, permanence, no batteries required)?

For the last year, I’ve been working on a project with HP Labs called MagCloud. The idea is simple, really. MagCloud enables anyone to start a magazine – real, live printed magazine – with no giant pile.

Lad mags in decline

Remember when lad mags ruled the world? Those days are gone, it seems: the latest circulation figures show massive declines almost entirely across the board. According to UK Press Gazette, the big losers include:

• FHM (down 25.9% in the last half of 2006)
• Loaded (down 29.9%)
• Maxim (down 29.3%)
• Arena (down 29.9%)
• Zoo (down 21.5%)

Looks like their readers have worked out how to find porn on the internet.

Podcastic

I spent a bit of time blathering yesterday for .net magazine’s inaugural podcast, which should appear on Monday (22nd January). It’s hosted by Paul Boag of boagworld.com and in addition to a clearly cold-ridden me, it also features people who actually know what they’re talking about: .net ed Dan Oliver and web experts Andy Budd and Chris Heilmann. For the first episode we’ve blabbed about the iPhone and whether it’s going to change the mobile internet, the problems of HTML handling in Outlook 2007, how to get work in web development and who would win in a fight between Sugababes and Girls Aloud. One of those bits may be a lie.

In best web 2.0 style we’re making it up as we go along, so any comments – what you’d like the podcast to cover, who you’d like it to feature – would be very welcome (via the .net site, not here – I’m a mere contributor).

Popjustice are flogging t-shirts

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That one made me laugh. More here.

Grazia magazine. Oops!

This week’s Grazia comes with a supplement featuring celebs saying the funniest things, including this quote from Mariah Carey:

“When I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean, I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”

She never said it, of course – it’s an urban myth. And now, it’s a libel!

So you want to write about fire engines video games?

Want to be a games writer? The various “So you want to be a games journalist” blog posts (all of which you’ll find linked from Richard Cobbett’s blog, where he offers his own advice) will tell you everything you need to know, assuming The Triforce don’t put you off the idea altogether.

I’d write a post about getting into tech writing in general, but the advice would be identical.

That britblog piece is online…

As promised, .net’s put my best British blogs feature online. You’ll find it here.

Marie Claire and death by focus group

It’s probably not a surprise that hacks and editors talk about other magazines a lot – usually to damn the competition, but occasionally to praise the good stuff too. One name that used to come up a lot was Marie Claire, which stood out from the me-too world of women’s publishing with its combination of the usual suspects together with really good features. Sadly over the last few years it’s gone more and more lowbrow – a recent Paris Hilton cover was particularly bad – so here comes a redesign to rescue it.

Unfortunately the redesign is based on focus groups, and the result is awful: a huge chunk of the magazine is now devoted to shopping, and the overall magazine seems to suffer from a major case of me-tooism – to the point that my wife is cancelling her subscription. From must-read to must-bin in just over a year.

By comparison, the LA Times is also considering its direction – but instead of focus groups, it’s asking its own staff. According to UK Press Gazette:

The LAT has appointed three of its best investigative reporters and half a dozen editors to look into ideas for making the paper more appealing to readers – and advertisers.

That makes a lot of sense. After all, reporters spend a lot of time highlighting the flaws in other people’s companies – so why not get a bunch of your own opinionated sods to turn their jaundiced eye on their own publication? I suspect the reason it doesn’t happen more often is because hacks say what they see, whether it upsets people or not – and if they’re looking at their own publications, the people they’ll upset and whose strategies they might mock are the people who pay their wages. If they’re fearless, they could end up sacked; if they let that worry them, they might pull their punches and render the whole exercise worthless.

It’s an interesting idea, though. Rather than sending for the focus groups, could it be cheaper – and more useful – to commission some of your own people to do an in-depth, “what’s wrong with…” expose?

My back pages

Long-term I want this blog to include an archive of all my various scribblings for cash, but unfortunately I keep forgetting to do anything about it. However, I’ve uploaded a couple of things: three “hypertheticals” columns for PC Plus magazine.

The idea behind “hypertheticals” is to take an interesting question, choose one side of the argument and stick with it – so they’re designed to be argument fuel rather than fair and balanced “on one hand, but on the other” pieces. Naturally they’re enormous fun to write and research, and hopefully they’re fun to read too. The three I’ve uploaded are “What if the oil runs out?” “What if PC viruses infect humans?” and “What if Luddism returns?”

Nominations time again – this week, podcasts

I’m putting together a feature on tech podcasts, and as ever I’d appreciate any suggestions for must-listens – ideally web-related ones rather than “woo! iPods!”, heh.