Ah, how so much has changed in such a short span of years. And yet, Wired’s Chris Anderson is apparently obsessed with the “death” of publishing mediums.

For those of you who haven’t seen or heard about it yet, the cover story of the Condé Nast tech title’s September issue is called “The Web is Dead.” It’s a two part story with the “What Happened” portion written by Anderson and the “And Why” portion penned by new contributing editor Michael Wolff. Ironically, the story generated a huge amount of buzz last week when the story was posted—yes—to th More...

We analyze lots of show Web sites from around the world, and see a great divide between the strong and weak Facebook integrations. Oftentimes, simple, free and easy-to-execute tactics to increase Facebook community members are not employed.

One of these is the Like button. For those of you who don't know what this is, here's Facebook's description: "The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website."

The Like button is a key driver of Facebook's social marketing value p More...

Okay...there, I said it.

You'll find no greater supporter of online content marketing than me, but marketers and agencies are talking up print for 2011. Yes, in the era of iPads and Apps, there is still a role for print.

Jeff Jarvis recently wrote about how media companies need to ignore print.

"The physical costs of production and distribution are killing. The marketing cost of subscriber acquisition and churn are hellish."

He's right.  And if you are a media company that relies on most of your revenue for print, More...

Social media? So 2009. This year the publishing catchphrase is "marketing services" (with of course, a strong social media component). Depending on your definition, magazine publishers have always offered "marketing services," but today that increasingly has come to mean going beyond custom publishing and targeting below-the line-budgets ranging from direct marketing and lead gen to consumer or trade promotion, events, even market intelligence. Increasingly, publishers are bypassing the agencies to work directly with the brand on the marketing message.

But if the publisher now has direct access (or even input) on the marketing message, what does that mean for traditional publishing roles, such as editors and salesp More...

A growing number of magazines over the last several months have tapped into augmented reality with the goal of expanding the traditional print content experience with Web-based video or other electronic delivery.

Last summer, Bonnier’s Popular Science unveiled an interactive cover that allowed readers to log onto the Web site, hold up the cover to a webcam and interact with a 3-D image of wind turbines. For its December 2009 issue, Esquire featured 2-D barcodes on the cover and elsewhere inside the ma More...

Not long after media and information private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson released its annual communications industry forecast, I spoke with partner Hal Greenberg about the firm’s projections for consumer and trade magazines through 2014. In regard to consumer publishing, Greenberg said all eyes will be on how the flood of e-readers to the market will continue to affect business moving forward.

“What will be interesting is what impact the iPads and Kindles of the world will have on consumer magazines,” Greenberg said. “Right now, the subscription models aren’t particularly good. But, that will ultimately change. We think they w More...

Audio pioneer Sidney Harman [pictured] was never shy about offering his opinions of and to the press, including industry trade publications. My experience with Harman began 51 years ago when I launched an audio industry business weekly called Audio Times.

I began this journal because, as an audio hobbyist, I sensed a need for an informative newsweekly that would provide a steady flow of information about the wide range of products coming to market. Was I qualified to do this? Heck, no! I had no business contacts in the field and no experience in trade journalism. I did have a BS in Journalism and lots of enthusiasm. This was hardly preparation More...

A lot of changes are happening at ESPN the Magazine. As it announced earlier this summer, the magazine is moving much of its operations from Manhattan to the company’s headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. What’s more, the magazine is shifting to a single sport or theme per issue.

From a publishing perspective, I think it could be a great idea. The magazine will be able to plan content further in advance which potentially could allow the sales staff to start selling ads early, and perhaps also target advertisers that are relevant to the theme but have never bought any space in the magazine before.

Through the first six mont More...

Recently, the National Rifle Association's member magazine America's First Freedom took Garden & Gun to task for not accepting an ad from the organization. The NRA claimed it was a politically-motivated decision that doesn't stand up for a demographic Garden & Gun claims to serve. According to Garden & Gun, the magazine has a policy of not accepting political ads of any stripe.

"We regret that they chose to write about us without checking their sources with us and were disappointed by their decision to criticize us for refusing their ad without having their facts correct," president and CEO Rebecca Darwin tells More...

When The Washington Post Co. announced in May that it was putting Newsweek on the block the story obviously stirred up a lot of attention all around the world. The following day, I wrote a post here speculating who might wind up buying the ailing magazine. In response to that, I received an e-mail from a man named Abdulsalam Haykal, a technology entrepreneur who serves as CEO of a Syria-based company called Haykal Media. In the e-mail, Haykal talked about the growing potential of media in the Middle East and said he was More...

A month after final bids were due, the Washington Post Co. announced Monday that 91-year-old Sidney Harman, the founder and chairman emeritus of Harman International, has acquired Newsweek magazine.

“Newsweek is a national treasure,” Harman says in the announcement. “I am enormously pleased to be succeeding The Washington Post Company and the Graham family and look forward to this great journalistic, business and technological challenge.”

But Harman isn’t the only player who sounded off about the deal. I reached out to fellow bidder Fred Drasner (a former partner of Mort Zuckerman who helped negotiate his deals fo More...

Bids to acquire ailing Newsweek magazine were due at 5 p.m. on July 1. A month later, parent company the Washington Post Co. is still mum on the process and on who might wind up taking the magazine home.

Recent scuttlebutt, however, points to a couple interesting developments. The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Washington Post Co. isn’t interested in selling to bidder Avenue Capital Group over concerns with the hedge fund’s proposal to partner with National Enquirer publisher More...