Y’all Ready?
- This topic has 23 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated Jan 28, 2010 at 6:47 pm by
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Pretty much everyone is expecting Apple to unveil a new tablet Mac this week, which will probably be great for Macheads and irrelevant for everyone else.
However, I think there’s going to be a much more substantial announcement hidden amongst the hoopla: an iTunes-style store for online magazines.
It’s weird but seems true.
Apple seems to manage to shift old style contents to new money generating possibilities while all other manufacturers are only able to (bad) copy the hardware.The flaw in the Apple model is they don’t value the content, just the delivery.
Itunes and Ipods are great, no question, but what they’ve done to the mainstream music industry
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
I’m going to be called a curmudgeon for this, but unless Apple really figures it out well, and there are serious, significant changes in the magazine industry, I can see this dropping my magazine purchases to about zero.
I’ve come to realize that while I compose best while typing, I read for absorption best from hardcopy. I’ve tried looking at online magazines and they just don’t work for me – I can’t tilt the page to try to bring out details in photographs, zooming in and out is a pain, and there is not tactile sensation for me. I also like the fact that while on travel, I can buy a small stack of magazines and not have to worry about the “turn off all electronic devices” nazis or battery life issues.
I also wonder if (and would hope that) a different (and cheaper) production format would start to break the exceptionally close ties between magazines and manufacturers. I realize that there is a symbiotic existence there, but the ad/article ratio seems to continue to deteriorate in many of the magazines I buy (or used to). Judging from conversations I’ve had in other communities decrying the lack of separation between articles and advertisements, I’d say I’m not alone in hoping that somehow this results in a bit more real content and independence of the magazine publishers.
Abe –
The ads to articles ratio in the last six months to a year is the lowest it has ever, ever, ever been. As a result, most of the magazines have gone through rounds of job cuts–one of the magazines just cut jobs this week.
I think it helps to appreciate the history of fly fishing magazines a bit. Most fly magazines historically started as newsletters for clubs or fly shops. They had a regional base (American Angler’s was in the NE, while I believe Fly Fisherman’s was in Pennsylvania). After the newsletter reached a certain size, typically it was bought by a bigger company. This was generally a good thing: the writers got paid more and thus better writers would be drawn in, color on every page is nice, and the photography quality went way up due to better printing and better paper.
That was the world of fly fishing magazines through the late 1990s. They did have a symbiotic relationship with advertisers; the ads basically paid for the upgrades to full color, paper, better writers and photographers, etc., that a newsletter list could never have supported. In the late 1990s magazine conglomerate companies started buying up lots of magazines in order to better sell ad “bundles” to larger companies like Ford Motor Company or Big Tobacco, etc. That’s why you started seeing so many truck and chew ads in magazines like Field and Stream, and that filtered down.
Meanwhile, yes, for a while fly fishing magazines had something of a pretension to real journalism: they tried to draw an editorial line between content and advertising. Was that ever very realistic? Not really; those magazines are meant to entertain–they are not the New York Times. However, for the most part, the manufacturers did respect the boundaries and would not push on a writer too hard to say nice things about the product.
I’ve written over two dozen national feature articles. Most of those had to do with some kind of equipment, and thus I’ve dealt first-hand with the kind of editorial pressure a manufacturer can put on a magazine. Fact is, it’s not much. At most, I’d get pressured to merely “include everyone,” which can lead to long lists of items that may not read very well, but fundamentally that does not impact *what* I am writing about, which is usually a technical concept like how rods are built. On the contrary, more input usually means a better article. And, you’d be surprised how hard it is to get some companies even *interested* in an article on their technology. Many of them could not care less if they get included (which personally I don’t view as very savvy, but it definitely shows the lack of nefariousness going on in these relationships).
The truth is, since the advertising crash in 2007, the magazines have suffered greatly. Every one of them has lowered page count for *real articles* and lowered the payroll, usually by cutting experienced and talented editors. Several of the major magazines are literally just one man with a computer now, who might have the assistance of an art department shared with 10 other publications. I think that hurts quality, even though the guys in charge usually are still very capable–they are just being asked to do too much.
What the digital magazine distribution model does is add another line of income (online subscriptions), while *greatly reducing costs.* You don’t have a sell-through problem as both Phil Monahan and Tom Bie have described, with 40-70% of magazines printed being returned and discarded (and thus wasted money-wise). Instead, you get a digital copy, which costs the manufacturer nothing to distribute once it’s made on a computer (as it already is). I do think we’ll still have paper magazines available; certainly we will. The difference will be the ability to download, say, American Angler, from anywhere with a cell phone connection (doctor’s offices, lobbies, board room meetings, a campsite, an airport, on a plane, the list goes on and on). You won’t have to track down the paper copy unless you want to. Many photographers have noted how much better our content looks when it’s back lit on a computer screen, too.
Are there tradeoffs? Sure–you listed many of them. But as a supplement, rather than a replacement, I think this has the potential to be a very good thing. I believe the ads will in fact go back up in number, but if the page count of real content also goes back up (which it will), then so what? Personally, I like looking at ads for stuff I don’t know about; when I read a hunting magazine, for instance, I always look at the ads as well as the material.
Anyway, some stuff to ponder.
Zach
Lots of food for thought Zach. I tend to disagree on one point. In the long run, I don’t think the digital magazines will supplement the printed media, but will, in fact, replace it. As readers shift to the digital media, the cost per unit of the printed magazines will increase dramatically. It is a matter of a fixed publication cost being spread over fewer and fewer magazines. Eventually, the print magazines will be priced out of the market. :'(
That is a very good point, Bob. I had not thought of that. I am counting on the technology of the digital reader to improve, too. Right now when you look at your computer screen, you are seeing between 72 and 90 dots per inch depending on whether you use a Mac or a PC. (This gets complicated fast due to monitor enlargement, but for a measurement of how dense the pixels are on your personal computer, grab a ruler and go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_densities. The square box over there on the right would be rendered at roughly three quarters of an inch in American Angler magazine, meaning all those pixels would get compressed into a much tighter space.)
Magazines typically print in between 220 and 270 dpi, while the best art mags might print in 300dpi or higher. That’s why paper oftentimes looks richer; it literally is.
Over time, I think the eReader technology like the Amazon Kindle and its ilk will improve to the point that we have paper-like full-color displays that don’t look so “computer-y.” Eyestrain is a major factor in why people don’t like to read online all day, and that is related to the pixel count more than anything else. When THAT happens, I truly believe it will be irrelevant whether we read on paper or a digital device. Personally, I will never stop buying paper books, but for throw-away stuff like magazines, I don’t really care how I read them, if the experience is equivalent.
Zach
When that happens, we may see a reversal of the slide in editorial jobs and revenues and a general stabilization of the mass bloodletting that’s been going on behind closed doors in the last two years in the publishing industry. I certainly hope so.
Zach
Great post Zach! Very informative and interesting. So that I might better understand the situation, could you elaborate on the above quote? Is the bloodletting you refer to the laying off of mag editors and mags being turned into a one-man-show?
Thanks,
DustyYes, Dusty. One of the magazines supposedly just released all their editors save one this week (I know they had to let one guy go at least), and that’s happened a couple times in the last year across the board. A number of magazines have simply folded. I got a notice this week that National Geographic Adventure had folded, too, so it’s not just fly fishing by any means.
Zach
Over time, I think the eReader technology like the Amazon Kindle and its ilk will improve to the point that we have paper-like full-color displays that don’t look so “computer-y.” Eyestrain is a major factor in why people don’t like to read online all day, and that is related to the pixel count more than anything else.
ZachActually, I think flicker rate has far more effect on strain than pixel density.
I’ve come to realize that while I compose best while typing, I read for absorption best from hardcopy. I’ve tried looking at online magazines and they just don’t work for me – I can’t tilt the page to try to bring out details in photographs, zooming in and out is a pain, and there is not tactile sensation for me. I also like the fact that while on travel, I can buy a small stack of magazines and not have to worry about the “turn off all electronic devices” nazis or battery life issues.
Why type something of your own when it was said so well by someone else. Couldnt agree more Abe. In addition to what you wrote I have a major issue with eye strain.
I’m probably one of the younger guys on this board I’m 24…when I started fly fishing in 1996 I can remember saving money to go to the book store and buy a new magazine.
Since high speed internet in the last few years I’ve probably only bought 4 or 5 magazines…and I think all of those were bought in airports.
I don’t have any problem reading online magazine like this is fly and like being able to search for more material on a given topic easily.
Abe –
The ads to articles ratio in the last six months to a year is the lowest it has ever, ever, ever been. As a result, most of the magazines have gone through rounds of job cuts–one of the magazines just cut jobs this week.
Zach- you’re much closer to the publishing industry than I am.
Itunes and Ipods are great, no question, but what they’ve done to the mainstream music industry
is IMHO criminal and amazingly greedy.I have to disagree here. I don’t believe Apple and the iTunes store has hurt the music industry. I think it’s helped in some respect. It’s given people a legal way to buy digital music (and other content) and provide revenue to the music companies.
The thing that’s hurt the music industry is the peer-peer illegal sharing of music. That coupled with the music industry’s inability to come to grips with the electronic age, has really hurt sales. The music industry has to find a way to sell digital music in such a way that it’s user friendly, profitable for them, at a fair price.
Apple has come the closest to doing just that. Providing a legal outlet for digital content, providing a user friendly way to do it, and a price that people are willing to pay.
Let’s face it . . . why do I need to ever buy a CD again? I buy one, rip it to my computer, put it on my iPod and store the CD. Now I have all my old CD’s taking up space and they will probably never be used again. I can’t sell them as that would not be right. So now I buy digital music because I don’t have to store the CD and it costs less.
Digital music should cost less that a CD also. There is no incremental cost for each “album” sold. No disk, no jewel case, etc. Yes there is overhead for distributing digital content, but it does not mater if you sell one million copies or 10 million copies really.
Though I don’t have one, the Kindle provides the writing on the wall for the publishing industry. The electronic age is here, and the publishing industry needs to step up and figure out how to embrace it rather than fight it. I have read articles about publishers wanting to release ebook version later that hardback versions. The publishers don’t like amazon.com’s pricing of $9.99 per ebook. The ebook should be cheaper as you don’t have to print it, ship it etc. That cost is gone. These days it’s already one a computer, just put it in a ebook format and let amazon.com distribute it. The cost to product the product has to be lower that a printed book. Therefore the price should be lower.
Pretty much everyone is expecting Apple to unveil a new tablet Mac this week, which will probably be great for Macheads and irrelevant for everyone else.
However, I think there’s going to be a much more substantial announcement hidden amongst the hoopla: an iTunes-style store for online magazines. The major publishers (Conde Nast, etc.) have been not-so-secretly working with Apple to develop a set of guidelines for sizes, pricing, pixel density–all the things you need to make a high quality magazine (Esquire-quality; I’m not talking about ThisisFly, though they will benefit too) and then render it on a digital device.
I predict that by 2013 we’ll be getting most of our magazines just like a lot of you get the podcast. (10,000+ of you, evidently, based on the Loomis podcast). When that happens, we may see a reversal of the slide in editorial jobs and revenues and a general stabilization of the mass bloodletting that’s been going on behind closed doors in the last two years in the publishing industry. I certainly hope so.
Zach
Zach, FYI… Apple iPad is here! 😀
http://gizmodo.com/
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