FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

Little more than a month after FOLIO: first reported about Reed Elsevier's plans to divest Reed Business Information, we received a comment from someone who had started a related blog called DivestmentWatch.

The blog—run by a Web operations manager for Reed Elsevier's Totaljobs Group in London—monitored, discussed and linked to news stories about the divestment process. The site, the blogger wrote, had generated more than 5,000 unique visitors and averaged nearly 200 daily visits.

In a May 2 More...

People leave magazine publishing all the time and for all sorts of reasons. Some want to spend more time with their family. Some want to go back to school. Some leave to start their own business. Others devote themselves to Buddhism after feeling “exiled” from his own heart.

Like Phillip Moffitt who left Esquire, and the industry, in 1987 after an apparently stressful stint as CEO and editor-in-chief, to devote himself to what he calls “the inner life.” In the two decades since, he has been ordained a Buddhist priest and, in 1991, founded the Life Balance Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to the study and practice of spiritual values. (H More...

Here’s something fun to chew on over the long holiday weekend:

The human resources department at Cygnus might have stumbled upon the as-yet undiscovered key to increasing the bottom line: Wearing jeans … on Tuesdays.

According to an e-mail sent to staffers this week from HR vice president Judy Heidebrecht, employees will be permitted to wear “nice” jeans to work next Tuesday, May 27—as long as they are “even more productive.”

So, trade in your suit pants and skirts, folks. Jeans = productivity!

Here’s the e-mail:

From: "Judy Heidebrecht"
Date: May 22, 2008 7:08:47 PM EDT
Subject: More...

Pictured, left to right: Megan Asha, Wired editor Chris Anderson, Star magazine's Julia Allison and Wired founder Loius Rossetto

SEE RELATED SLIDESHOW: Wired's 15th Anniversary Party

Despite the blustery evening, nearly 350 people gathered at midtown Manhattan’s recently opened rooftop oasis Highbar last night for Wired magazine’s 15th anniversary party.

The usual Condé Nasters headlined the party, including Wired editor Chris Anderson, publisher Chris Mitchell and da More...

Embracing the post-Mother’s Day spirit, I couldn’t resist sharing this edgy literary magazine for mothers I stumbled upon.

Launched in the fall of 2006 and published quarterly, Get Born magazine’s tagline is: “The uncensored voice of motherhood.” Get Born was founded by two Colorado mothers who wanted to “celebrate the whole messy process of motherhood by giving real women in the real trenches of motherhood a chance to speak, to write, to make their voices heard,” the magazine’s Web site says.

According to its media kit, Get Born targets mothers aged 22 to 45 wit More...

Was this for real?

Late last month, FOLIO: reported that Elle’s May green issue was the apparent victim of a prank by which “Retraction” stickers were placed in several copies on an investigative report that examined the eco-extremist movement through the story of a teenage FBI informant.

Earlier this week, someone posted an anonymous comment to the story pointing readers to a site to see the stickers—which claim the Elle story contains “factual inaccuracies,” and gives a “fair hearing More...

Ever since British acquisition firm Incisive Media purchased U.S.-based ALM last July for $630 million, it seemed that the Apax Partners subsidiary was on the fast track, quickly evolving from an entrepreneurial startup to a b-to-b powerhouse.

Now, it seems there is some apprehension from inside—mostly about revenues. Is the legal market not as recession-proof as once thought?

Earlier this month, ALM slashed 42 jobs across the board. The company apparently is scaling back plans to grow Real Estate Media's Florida publication into a monthly magazine and is shifting Law Firm, Inc. from More...

Ready the warp drive, Scotty, here comes a publicity stunt of inter-galactic proportions.

According to a post I came across on MarketingWeek.com, U.K.-based Future Publishing is planning to send every issue of its sci-fi mag SFX where apparently no other magazine has gone before: space.

SFX is teaming up with a firm called SentForever, which converts messages into radio waves and sends them to a British satellite station. Using a massive satellite transmission dish, the message is blasted into t More...

The French are taking the all-you-can-eat buffet gimmick to the digital newsstand.

According to a post I read yesterday on PCWorld.com, a French distributor has launched a subscription offer that allows customers to pay a $28 monthly fee to be able to download any or all of its 400 magazine titles, including Glamour and Playboy. There’s no limit to the number of digital magazines one can download.

U.S. digital magazine publisher Zinio offers individual subscriptions, but this appears to be the first to offer a flat More...

This year, the editors here at FOLIO: selected ESPN senior vice president of content development and enterprises Keith Clinkscales to our annual FOLIO: 40 list—and for good reason. The brand, and the magazine, have undoubtedly stepped out of the shadow of competitor Sports Illustrated.

Clinkscales has steered ESPN's business strategy and is responsible for operations associated with the magazine and the company's publishing-related business initiatives. The magazine has hired top talent, and saw a nearly 20-percent spike in ad revenues last year. In February More...

Move over Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

This week's source of server-testing traffic goes instead to singer/actress Jennifer Lopez, who appeared in People magazine with her newborn twins, Max and Emme. People.com reportedly clocked an all-time daily high of four million unique visitors hungry for the photos from People's exclusive shoot, doubling its previous total.

The tots won't touch New York magazine's "artful" nude photos of Lohan as Marilyn Monroe, which crashed nymag.com's servers in February to the tune of 20 million page views on each of the first two days More...

Less than a week after its 21st annual media conference wrapped up in Florida, investment firm giant Bear Stearns Co. was sold Monday to rival JP Morgan Chase & Co. for $240 million—or just $2 per share, a 90 percent loss to what the company was worth a week ago.

Although the dramatic news doesn't have a direct impact on the magazine industry (unless Bear Stearns owes your business money, of course), it does have Wall Street traders up in arms again in a credit market that has former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Gre More...