FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

A thirsty beer lover + a GPS bar locator = a wonderful idea.

Rodale’s Men’s Health has taken its regular “Jimmy the Bartender” column in the magazine and created an application for it for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The application uses GPS technology to guide imbibing users to the next watering hole, all in proximity to the user’s location.

Additionally, the application features hundreds of “Ask Jimmy” Q+As, drink recipes and allows users to submit their own reviews and photos to the application database. It even offers advice on tipping and on flagging down the bartender.

"We're not just turning More...

I’m surprised it took this long.

American Apparel, the mega clothing retailer known as much for its risqué advertisements as it is for its cotton t-shirts and underwear, has had an ad campaign banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, a U.K. advertising regulator.

The campaign, which appeared on the back cover of the U.K. edition of irreverent New York-based magazine Vice, featured a series of six photos of a “young looking girl” wearing the retailer’s “Flex Fleece” zip-up hoody. In the photos, the girl was seen “exposing progressivel More...

The Audit Bureau of Circulations today released its long-awaited FAS-FAX report for the first half of 2009. Not surprisingly, preliminary numbers showed that, of the more than 500 magazines reporting, overall paid subscriptions were flat, up about half a percentage point.

Single copy sales, meanwhile, were down 12 percent overall compared to the same six-month period last year. Notably, our beloved newsstand behemoths—celebrity and fashion titles—saw some of the biggest single copy declines.

In the fashion category, Condé Nast's W registered the biggest newsstand loss of the period, with single copy sales nosediving 21 pe More...

American politics lost its “liberal lion” Tuesday night when longtime Massachusetts Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy passed away from a battle with a brain cancer. He was 77.

As expected, the media coverage surrounding Kennedy’s death has been swift and dedicated. A number of news outlets, including several television networks, are planning special commemorative coverage of Kennedy’s life and work.

Time is the first magazine I’ve seen step forward with plans for a special commemorative issue in print, which publisher T More...

According to documents filed this week with the Security and Exchange commission, the Reader's Digest Association—in connection with its reorganization plan—agreed to changes in CEO Mary Berner’s and CFO Tom Williams’ base salaries and severance payouts.

During the Chapter 11 process, Berner will be paid $125,000 per month in base salary. Meanwhile, Williams will receive $68,200 per month.

Multiplied out over 12 months, Berner’s new agreement would put her annual salary at $1.5 million. According to RDA’s last 10-K report, Berner in fiscal 2008 was earning a base salary of $600,000 (and was eligible for an annua More...

Over the last several months, FOLIO: has reported its fair share of difficult stories. Magazine have folded. Thousands of people have been laid off. Publishing companies have filed for bankruptcy.

Here’s another tough one.

Renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz, whose iconic work has appeared in magazines like Vogue and Rolling Stone over her four decade-long career, is nearing the darkest deadline of her life: Repay $24 million in loans by September 8 or face losing her homes —and perhaps the rights to her entire life’s work.

Leibovitz (pictured), according to a lengthy More...

Get the welcome package ready. A new neighbor is moving to town—in Detroit, that is.

Time magazine owner Time Inc. reportedly ponied up $99,000 to buy a 95-year-old house on Parker Ave. in the West Village neighborhood to use as a satellite office. The magazine is said to be ramping up coverage of the ailing Motor City.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Time reporters will be able to live and work from the house, making it the city’s first live-in bureau. The New York Times and Washington Post have traditional Detroit bureau offices there—not livi More...

As if we needed a reminder about how bad the economy is right now.

To mark the 12-month anniversary later this year of the start of the economic recession, SmartMoney magazine has launched a social media project called Countdown to the Crash. The magazine is tweeting daily stories from the previous year, chronicling what life was like, day-by-day, before and during the brutal economic decline.

The tweets began this month and will continue through December.

Sure, Countdown to the Crash is an interesting use of social medi More...

This isn’t exactly the shot you’d think to use your five iron for.

Last month’s issue of Reader’s Digest featured a joke submitted by a reader about police officers finding a man in an apartment, holding a golf club and standing over the “lifeless body” of a woman. In the joke, when asked how many times he struck the woman, the man replied: "I don't know. Five ... maybe six ... Put me down for a five."

Now, advocates for domestic violence victims are speaking out against the joke and the magazine. "Wome More...

The bad news keeps rolling in for shuttered hip-hop magazine Vibe.

Less than a month after Vibe announced that it was going out of business, an angry subscriber this week filed a federal lawsuit claiming breach of contract. The reader, Enterprise, Alabama resident Kenneth Rogers, reportedly purchased a one-year subscription to Vibe three months before it folded.

Rogers is petitioning for all of the magazine’s subscribers to get a refund for the issues they won’t receive. According to the lawsuit, Vibe’s Web site More...

The editorial exodus at Entrepreneur continues.

According to his blog, staff writer Dennis Romero was let go Friday for "failing to carry out the duties of my job" and because "it was clear I was not happy working there."

While Romero admitted his unhappiness at the magazine, he vehemently denied the charge of failing to carry out his duties as a writer. “I will cede the second point. On the first, le More...

Forbes today said Jim Spanfeller will be leaving as president and CEO of Forbes.com. He will remain with the company through the end of August.

I spoke with Spanfeller this afternoon and he denied reports that his leaving was pressured by Forbes investor Elevation Partners. “That’s just crappy reporting,” he said during a phone conversation. “Unless Elevation has the ability to stick thoughts and actions in my head, they had nothing to do with my decision to move on.”

Sp More...