Ms. Magazine’s refusal to run what appeared—at first glance—to be a benign advertisement touting female Israeli leaders, as FOLIO: first reported last week, has caused a bit of a stir in the American Jewish community, who are claiming the magazine is being anti-Israel. The magazine claims it is merely being anti-political:

"Ms. magazine’s policy ... is to only accept mission-driven advertisements from primarily non-profit, non-partisan organizations that promote women’s equality, social justice, More...

The buzz in marketing circles is about "customer engagement," ways of interacting with customers to advance marketing goals. cScape, a London based digital agency, has released a survey of 1000 "Customer experience professionals, showing the level of interest in programs that move customer engagement along. There is lots of it.

Here's the catch: the creators of the study are not big on "traditional advertising" and have not included even interactive advertising as part of the the study.

This is instructive for media sales people to see just how far this "engagement" concept can go without ever mentioning advertising.

From the study:

"Traditional marketing commun More...

If you've read my blog in recent weeks, you know I've grown very worried about what 2008 will bring for b-to-b publishing. A few days ago, I wrote that it's "time for b-to-b editors and publishers to build some fighting holes"-defensive positions from where they could ride out the coming onslaught of bad economic news.

I promised then that I would "post some of my thoughts on what a b-to-b fighting hole looks like." And given the news that More...

Print has a short behind-the-scenes look at New York’s recent section reshuffling:

There’s been some sadness around this office that New York decided to get rid of their High Priority feature, a half-page graphic that opened their listings section each week. Created by a different designer every issue, High Priority showed off the talents of designers new and established, with the only restriction being that the design be done in red, black, and white.* Chris Dixon, the magazine’s design director, jokes tha More...

One of my favorite people in the industry is straight-shooter Jack Semler, President of the Readex Corporation. Readex is best known for ad readership studies (like Starch and Harvey) although they also do a healthy business in more general subscriber studies and other types of research. In any case, WE publishers are their customers. If WE are really worried about business next year, we will do fewer paid outside studies and Readex's forward business outlook for 2008 should be down.

Well, here's what Jack said; "As for our indicators, we are kicking butt right now.  The ad effectiveness study count will be up and the number of proposals we are writing for custom studies is above average.  IF all holds up and doesn't crash More...

As media moves from being intangible to measured the details become more important, and lunch--the core tool of intangible sales-- less so. Along these lines, Ed Kelly executive vice president, digital media at KSL Media, offered sobering advice in a post last week on "Online Publishing Insider":

"We're not in the lunch business. We're in the advertising business. The publishers that heed this charge will outrun their competitors every time, even if their sites aren't quite as robust."

Kelly offers these guidelines for reps wanting to make the most of the new sales environment:

Respond to the full RFP. This sounds a lot easi More...

Recently, I had the task of finding a new top editor for The Fader magazine and Web site. Being a very targeted and specific editorial property, it is never an easy job to find an editor that meets all of our so-called "requirements," which are many and include (but are not limited to) writing/editing skills, vast knowledge and experience covering underground and emerging music of all genres, ability to work in a collaborative editorial environment and a multi-dimensional background not strictly limited to writing and editing. The la More...

I called my wife Tuesday from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:

"Forget about building that addition on the house. We need the money for the 150-inch TV I just saw."

Understandably alarmed, she pointed out that we would probably still need the contractor to build a steel-reinforced wall in the man cave to mount my dream television.

As I snapped back to reality, I surveyed the vast expanse of the Central Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Hundreds of exhibitors covered the floor, each showing More...

Early versions of digital magazines got a bad rap, thanks to static facsimiles and awkward reader tools that did little to improve the reader experience over print. However, digital editions have been evolving, becoming more seamless with online and offering new opportunities with search and archiving.

They may even show some promise as revenue generators. In a recent Folio: Webinar called Digital Edition Revenue Generation, part of a three-part Digital University Series sponsored by NXTBook Media, three publishers talked about how they're seeing financial returns with digital editions. Hearst Electronics Group created a custom digital edition called Project Analog for one sponsor, while UK-based Graduate Prospects phased out its More...

I interviewed Kristy Kaus, Active Interest Media's research director, for a story I wrote in the January issue of FOLIO:. Kaus has been doing cover research for a number of AIM's enthusiast titles, and her program has provided a measurable boost in newsstand sales. The research is done via online surveys-a method that puts cover testing well in the realm of small to mid-sized enthusiast publishers that otherwise wouldn't spring for a full-on, focus-group or direct mail approach.

The testing is performed through a proprietary Web-based survey platform developed by Kaus, and can be executed with a 36-hour turnaround. If you're feeling skittish about using an online-based testing group, don't be. Kaus notes that readers are typicall More...

Great FOLIO: cover story this month on Glam.com and its pink-leaning founder, Samir Arora. The company is still somehow under the radar, despite its absurd traffic growth (25 million unique visitors a month across its network of 400 sites) and rank (ComScore places it among the top 25 Internet media companies).

One point that didn’t make it into the article but came out during a video shoot we did with Samir for FOLIOmag.com this week: he’s not looking to flip the company. At least, not yet. From rough notes I took during the i More...

Architectural Record’s contributing editor Robert Campbell—also a Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic for the Boston Globe—takes a sophisticated jab at the Hearst Tower, which opened in October 2006, in the magazine’s January issue.

He writes that the building, designed by UK-based Foster + Partners, looks like a “misplaced missile silo”, “a cage for a single massive object”, maybe even “the car More...