FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

There's an interesting discussion going on at a recent post on the Office of Inspector General, USPS blog, which is hosted by the OIG's Risk Analysis Research Center.

The post is soliciting feedback on the pricing of periodicals class, which has long enjoyed a cap on price increases.

The post goes on the offense, highlighting some striking contrasts between periodicals class and the rest of the mailstream:

"In fact, in the final rate case in 2006 before the new price cap system of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act took effect, the 'markup' on Periodicals was o More...

The MPA wants to make a few things clear about the unfortunate string of magazine closures we've been experiencing.

It's the economy, stupid. That's not what they said, exactly, but they'd like to remind everyone that the readers are still there—it's the advertisers that are jumping ship. A data sheet posted on MPA's site in early August attempts to point out that consumer interest, via circ levels, is maintaining while advertising declines correspond with shutdowns.

Also, last year wasn't all that bad compared to other years. In fact, we didn't even come close to 2000-2001 levels.

The MPA cites closure metrics from Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. Apparently, there were 54 magazines closed in 2008, whic More...

Time Inc., which publishes Sports Illustrated, home of the famed Swimsuit Issue juggernaut, announced today that one day after launch its "SI Swimsuit 2009" iPhone app is the number-one paid lifestyle application in Apple's App Store.

The app, developed by Acton, Massachusetts-based Azuki Systems, retails at $2.99 and is the first one by Sports Illustrated. It offers photos and video of 20 models, as well as a calendar feature that allows users to apply photos for each month and track schedules and scores for six sports teams.
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I'm all for the idea of supplementing online article content with videos, but doing it just for the sake of having some 'multimedia' can stretch the point a bit too far.

Take the case of an otherwise great Atlantic story by contributing editor Michael Hirschorn called 'The Newsweekly's Last Stand.' In it, Hirschorn describes The Economist's teflon resistance to the ad crash and Time and Newsweek's struggles with obsolescence.

Embedded in the middle of the story is a video interview between Hirschorn and Bob Cohn, Atlantic.com's editorial director, which follo More...

Yesterday, the media lit up with news that Vibe, the R&B and hip hop publication, had abruptly shut its doors.

Meanwhile, over at EbonyJet.com, Adrienne Samuels Gibbs reports that Quincy Jones [pictured], a distinguished jazz and pop music producer, artist, and Vibe founder, wants the magazine back. "I'm trying to buy t More...

I received my first edition of "mine" yesterday. It's a print and digital customized magazine concept being tested by Time Inc. I went for the print edition because, logistically, I was more curious how that would pan out. Plus, Time Inc. said they were only going to print 31,000 copies—I wanted in on the print action.

Keeping in mind this is a test project, I still couldn't help feeling constrained by the selection, especially when they say each issue will "include stories tailored specifically to [my] interests." Magazine choices include Travel + More...

Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, keynoted the Newspaper Association of America event in San Diego this week, just as newspaper executives were dragging out and dusting off the old aggregator backlash, whining about "stolen" content.

But Schmidt, during a Q+A session after his address, made some insightful remarks about online audience behavior with paid content, search and news.

His address was obviously targeted at newspapers and news-oriented content, but his takeaways can easily be applied to any online content publisher. We're all struggling with online business models and how visitors want to consume content.

Some key excerpts via Poynter, which has the More...

Here’s one way to drum up interest in an otherwise benign press release.

Discover Magazine's Web site hit 1.7 million uniques in March and its blog, Bad Astronomy, broke the 2 million page view barrier. The unique visitor metric is three times the site's traffic a year earlier. To celebrate, CEO Henry Donahue and blogger Phil Plait will be getting tattoos.

Now we've all heard about brand ambassadors, especially among editors, but having the CEO drop himself into the community interplay by commemorating More...

To the consternation of about 283 CEOs, Moody's Investor Service published its "Bottom Rung" list on Tuesday—a compilation of companies the firm thinks are at the greatest risk of defaulting on their debts. FOLIO: took a look at the bottom 30 earlier, but the full list reveals a cringe-worthy portion of publishers and media companies.

Some surprising; some, not so much:

Advanstar Communications Inc.
American Media Operations Inc.
Canon Communications More...

Mediapost has a good interview with Chuck Cordray, GM of Hearst Magazines Digital Media. In it, he reveals paid search is a very small part of the group's traffic-driving strategy, at least for the women's sites-a very competitive market, by the way. "For the core women's sites, we buy less than 1 percent of our traffic. It's really search and syndication that drives 77 percent of our traffic," he said.

Knowing where your traffic is coming from and the tactics your visitors are using to get to your site is an important distinction. In Hearst's case, it has been a key driver behind optimizing the sites for search as much as pos More...

Source Interlink sent a letter to its retailer partners today explaining how the distributor is reacting to the current chaos in the magazine newsstand channel.

(If you haven't been following this saga, read these stories here, here, here and here.)

It's pretty strong stuff. Claims of an "unprovoked assault" and competitive lockouts. I More...

On January 14, Charlie Anderson, CEO of Anderson News, announced his company's plan to increase the per-copy price of distributing magazines by 7 cents. A week later, Source Interlink announced it would raise its prices by 7 cents, too. Both wholesalers have instituted a February 1 deadline for publishers to sign on the dotted line. Since then, news outlets, including FOLIO: and Audience Development, have More...