FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

2011 was a year of redesigns and relaunches, as magazine covers aimed to provoke (and as a result, to sell). Some efforts amounted in positive buzz and hiked newsstand numbers; others inspired seemingly unending rounds of media heckling (Newsweek’s July 4th cover, which featured a very Photoshopped image of the late Princess Diana, here’s lookin’ at you). Here, FOLIO: asks three of our 2011 FaceUp participants to weigh in on their favorite covers of the year.

TIME
October 17, 2011

Publisher:< More...

For the magazine industry, the holiday season thus far has been mixed. The first full week of December brings two pieces of sad news (not including the holiday party budget reductions reported earlier this week—the horror, the horror).

Get Married Media is closing down within upcoming weeks, and Utne Reader is relocating to publisher Ogden Publications’ headquarters in Topeka, Kansas from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The physical mo More...

Free samples, whether from a grocery store, makeup counter or a newsstand, are largely welcomed by consumers. Give people a chance to sample great products without putting down a dollar and watch the line of waiting customers curve around the block. Aside from the free good itself, consumers will often experience a warm feeling for the manufacturer supplying it, “They really do care!” Companies (retailers, publishers, etc.) know this, and maintain the freebie as an act of goodwill, opposed to what it really is: a bite to inspire consumers to buy the entire package.

Today, The Wall Street Journal opens the gates of its paid wall, allowing viewers to access ever More...

The theme of this year’s American Business Media Executive Forum was paid content, and vets from every facet of the b-to-b industry were on hand to offer guidance and lessons from the field. Beyond the paywall debates, marketing services and analytics discussions was the business brands are built on: the content. David Berlind, UBM Techweb’s editor-in-chief/CCO, John Gallant, CCO with IDG Enterprise and SourceMedia EVP/CCO David Longobardi shared how they are encouraging and prepping editorial staff for the future.

In the Forum’s keynote presentation, president of The Marketing Democracy Judy Franks reinforced the difference between social networks a More...

In its quarterly survey, Mediafinder.com reports 200 magazines launched in the first nine months of 2011. This number is an upshot from the same period in 2010, in which 176 magazines debuted.

Leading the launch list is the food category (with 25 new titles) and regional interest (which introduced 18 titles); new regional pubs include Bitayavon, O. Henry Magazine and Brooklyn Magazine. 944 Media (which shuttered its luxe magazine offerings in June) debuts a new regional offering with Vegas/Rated, under parent company Sandow Media’s partnership with WENDOH Media.

Just like the magazine industry itself, reporting styles are evolving. Aggregated and link journalism is plentiful; yellow journalism will most likely never go away; long-form journalism holds a nostalgic power, despite increasingly Tweet-ified attention spans; and now, the era of “me” journalism appears to be here for the long haul.

Preceding this burgeoning journalism trend is the Me generation, a phrase that often refers to those born in the latter half of the 20th Century. Iconic journalist Tom Wolfe explored this phenomenon in More...

Software giant Apple is losing its figurehead, as Steve Jobs (pictured) announced his resignation as CEO yesterday. And as the company loses the man who serves as both its leader and a major part of its brand, people are starting to wonder what is fated for Apple, its software and its policies.

In a letter to Apple employees released Wednesday, Jobs tapped Tim Cook, current COO of Apple, as his successor. Jobs will act as board chairman and director at the company.

Jobs himself is followed by an almost cultish group dubbed “fanboys” in the media; supposedly, More...

Since the news initially broke that British newspaper News of the World staff had continuously hacked into phone systems to scoop stories, the media is still rolling in controversy/pious/Twitter-ready tidbit glory. Legions of reporters and bloggers continue to offer up comment on the scandal; all the while sanctimoniously shaking their heads, “Who could ever do such a thing?”

While I believe the majority of my peers in the media industry stick to their journalistic guns (and I have to; if not, my own morality would be questionable by reporting on the industry), it’s hard to ignore some of the bigger implications of this media circus. < More...

At the Yale Publishing Conference, taking place from July 10 to July 15 in New Haven, CT, big names in magazine publishing are in attendance, both as students and teachers.

Monday’s sessions began with Richard Foster, senior faculty fellow at Yale School of Management and managing partner with the Millbrook Management Group, LLC. He philosophized about the term “creative destruction”, focusing its various implications in correlation to the publishing world.

Subsequent sessions led by Michael Clinton, president and marketing/publishing director of Hearst; president of Dwell Media Michela O’Connor Abrams; and Glamour editor-in-chief Cynthia Leive ran the gamut of print, digital and staffing challenges. More...

Personal ads, once a staple of the publishing industry, have gone to the wayside with the emergence of online dating sites, as well as classified ad prejudice (Craig’s List, anyone?).

Depiction of “Want” ads have suffered greatly in the media – Sleepless in Seattle may have gave lonely hearts hope of meeting blue-eyed strangers through media in the 90’s; but Lifetime’s recent Craig’s List Killer made-for-TV movie warns contemporary audiences against inter-Internet rendezvouses.

New York Magazine is attempting to bring the personal ad boom back into the mainstream of publishing by partnering with onlin More...

In an attempt to bring the success of the energy drink to their media branch, Red Bull is taking branded content to another level. The Red Bulletin, a monthly periodical of original content based on the “Red Bull lifestyle”, includes features on Red Bull-sponsored athletes, as well as other extreme sport and musical coverage.

The Red Bull Media House, a media division of the Red Bull brand, began The Red Bulletin in fall 2007 in Austria. The Bul More...