FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

In terms of online copyright issues, if you thought the Cooks Source fiasco that went viral recently was completely ridiculous, then what happened with—yes—Dairy Goat Journal should prove nearly as disturbing, although perhaps slightly less weird.

I’ll get back to the goats in a moment. First, for those who somehow missed it, a small Western Massachusetts-based cooking publication called Cooks Source was jettisoned out of obscurity and came under fire this month after writer Monica Gaudio discovered that a story she wrote in 2005 was repurposed by the magazine, without Gaudio’s c More...

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement yesterday that he had named Hearst Magazines chairman and former longtime president Cathie Black as chancellor of New York City Schools had a number of people in the media industry, as well as a few NYC-based parents, scratching their heads. Granted, Black had a lot of success overseeing Hearst, one of the largest consumer magazine publishing companies in the country. But how does that qualify her to lead NYC’s public school system?

Just look at this morning’s NYC newspaper covers [pictured]. As the New York Daily News pointed out, Black—a Manhattan resident—sent her two More...

I’ve seen my share of advertisements on magazine covers over the last couple years. I’ve seen corner page-peels, belly bands and ad “windows” of varying sizes. I’ve also seen false, glued-on covers and gatefolds.

Something like this, however, I haven’t seen.

The cover of the October 7 issue of Canon Communications’ EDN magazine [pictured right, top] features the EDN nameplate as it usually would, but the remaining two-thirds—which normally is devoted to editorial—is all advertising. The space is shared by an ad from a company called Avago Technologies and a corner page-peel ad from Digi-Key Corp (which also has a More...

The New Yorker subscribers got an unusual e-mail Wednesday explaining that the magazine had reset the passwords for those who never bothered to change the default user name/password they were assigned when they subscribed. Why? It turns out different default settings were needed to keep non-subscribers from being able to access the archive for free.

Here’s what happened: The New Yorker set the default usernames and passwords for subscribers to its digital edition and archive as that subscriber’s e-mail address. Sounds harmless enough, right? But according to More...

It’s been a little under two years since Knoxville, Tennessee-based magazine wholesaler Anderson News suspended normal business activity and eventually went out of business. The mega shut down came as the result of Anderson and fellow distributor Source Interlink announcing separate 7-cents-per-copy price hikes for publishers, and those publishers ultimately balking and refusing to pay.

Now, in a 4,300-word piece published by the Knoxville News Sentinel, Anderson CEO Charlie Anderson talks predominantly about navigating the challenging future of CD sales at Anderson Merchandisers as well as the world of digital e-com More...

Until recently, it had been mostly quiet at e5 Global Media, the private equity-backed media startup led by CEO Richard Beckman that acquired Nielsen Business Media’s eight media/entertainment industry brands late last year, including The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek and Back Stage magazines.

First came news that The Hollywood Reporter was transitioning from a weekday trade paper into a glossy weekly, and that former Us Weekly editor Janice Min was More...

Over the last couple days, I’ve heard a lot of talk about crossing the editorial line as it relates to publishers accepting sponsored content.

At day one of AdweekMedia’s Social Media Strategies conference, which I attended, Huffington Post chief revenue officer Greg Coleman said the site sees itself as a “social media ad agency.” He said sponsor-generated content appears on the site (I take his word on that, although I haven’t seen any) and that it’s marked as such. He was asked to talk about how much these sponsored posts are generating for the Huffington Pos More...

The boxing gloves go on, then they come off. Or, perhaps they were never on in the first place.

Tapping into the growing fervor and fascination surrounding the speculation that Sidney Harman’s Newsweek and Barry Diller-backed Daily Beast (run by celeb, power editor Tina Brown) could soon merge, the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper last week ran a piece alleging a monumental rift between Brown and Huffington Post founder/top editor Arianna Huffington.

Citing one anonymous media executive who allegedly is “familiar with both women,” the Guar More...

Who says publishing is an old person’s game?

On the contrary, as the magazine industry, and media in general, evolves into avenues beyond print and traditional advertising models, a crop of fresh, young talent is surging to the top, leading their companies in their respective fields of work and innovation.

For the November issue, FOLIO: will be profiling 13 of these rising stars, looking at how they’re redefining traditional roles such as editorial, sales, production, design and audience development, as well blazing a trail in new types of positions in social media and e-commerce.

And every one of them will be younger th More...

As consumer magazines continue to dig their way out of the economic recession, several hundred top managers across the industry gathered in Chicago early this week for the MPA’s American Magazine Conference to talk about the issues facing their business and the tactics for overcoming them.

The speaker lineup included Barnes & Noble CEO Howard Shultz, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, Wired creative director Scott Dadich, "The Facebook Effect" author David Kirkpatrick, Oprah Winfrey and many more. Much of the discussions surrounded the impact of e-readers and tablets—especially Apple’s iPad—on the magazine market. Other conversa More...

For a lot of publishers, creating an app for Apple’s iPad is like blazing a new trail—in more ways than one. Among them is Condé Nast’s The New Yorker, which debuted its app today. While it has had a Web site for nearly a decade and a digital edition for some time now the magazine, arguably, is still most regarded for its print product. And the editors know it.

In a note to readers, the editors say they are “at once delighted and a little bewildered” by the la More...

Back in June, Condé Nast said it planned to bring back the Gourmet brand as "Gourmet Live," a digital product developed in HTML5 that would be available across multiple devices and platforms. And it delivered. The innovative app for the iPad hit Apple’s iTunes store today. Chock full of stories from the magazine (which Condé closed down last fall), recipes, videos and slideshows, Gourmet Live is free and content is available without registration.

However, Condé says users need to sign in to Facebook or Twitter in order to access the app’s interactive features. It� More...