When Pilar Guzman, editor of year-old Cookie, first tested the magazine's cover prototypes-high-end photo shoots with model moms and model kids in model situations-she realized the magazine had "totally underestimated the reader."

"The focus groups could tell who the fake-y models and kids," Guzman says. "A mom knows, a mom knows that moment-a 22-year-old model who doesn't have a kid doesn't really know how to hold a child."

Despite burning a bridge with the shoot's equally high-end photographer (Guzman never used the cover) Guzman says the test forever changed the ma More...

Best line from day one of the 2007 American Magazine Conference, taking place at the ridiculously posh Boca Raton Resort & Club, courtesy of Adverting Age editor Jonah Bloom:

"For the journalists in us, we like when you pick a place to moor our yachts ... I have the slip next to Keith Kelly this year."

The big question for the 500 or so magazine executives gathering at Boca Raton's cavernously posh resort and club this week for the 2007 America More...

As we were sifting through the stacks of magazines we have collected here at Folio:, we came across the October and November issues of Shape. Placing them side-by-side we couldn't help but notice how strangely similar the covers are.

Both bathing suit-clad subjects (singer Sheryl Crow, October; actor Heather Graham, November) appear standing in water with the sun setting behind them. The color schemes are nearly the same. The cover lines look similar. The list goes on.

A Shape spokesperson says Crow and Graham were photographed in different locations, although at practically the same ti More...

As I have been known to criticize magazine publishers who do little more than lip service to being "green" (see: ‘Green' Issues Fail to Convert Magazines to Recycled Paper) it's nice to see a major magazine going beyond the "green issue" rhetoric and actually committing to something that will have an immediate impact. Starting next month, Everyday with Rachael Ray, whose ad revenue skyrocketed some 500 percent this year, will print its issues on 85 percent recycled paper. Additionally, the Reader's Digest-owned magazine i More...

High-profile editors are spouting off about the glossy relevancy of print, and that can mean only one thing: the American Magazine Conference is almost here. Like most magazine discussions these days, digital and its threat to print will undoubtedly be a major theme at next week's pow-wow of consumer magazine editors and publishers in Boca Raton (the conference has been given the unfortunate "Mag-a-brand' tagline) and, like politicians before a convention, editors seem to be sharpening their stump speeches.

Yesterday, three surfaced. More...

The finalists for the American Society of Magazine Editors' (ASME) second annual Best Cover Contest were announced today. The judges apparently have a thing for The Colbert Report's Stephen Colbert-his image is on three of the finalists.

L-R: Best Celebrity Cover, Best Concept Cover, Best Coverline

And they like babes on buildings, too.

More...

Six months after Time executed a historic redesign-and seemingly told anyone (read: Charlie Rose) who would listen-Newsweek has unveiled a redesign of its own, albeit ushered in with considerably less fanfare. Here's editor Jon Meacham's note:

We have two pieces of news close to home: a redesign of the magazine and of Newsweek.com. Our renovations come at an interesting time for journalism. As the number of news outlets expands, it is said, attention More...

I've been scratching my head for some time over American Business Media's practice of charging speakers whom they invite to speak at their events. Working for a company that produces dozens of events a year, we recognize that speakers are taking time from their schedules to speak at our events. And we wouldn't be able to have high-caliber events without high-caliber speakers. We do not charge our speakers.

I've questioned people at ABM on this practice in the past and their attitude has been, hey, it is what it is. But I wondered, does anyone else think this is odd, especially for an organization that is supported by companies that pay very high dues (our company's annual dues to the ABM are in the five-figures, and larger compani More...

Despite a driving rain, nearly 500 people made it to mid-town Manhattan's Guastavino's Thursday night for BusinessWeek's "What's Next?" party, celebrating the magazine's first redesign in four years. The magazine's new, sharper look debuted in the October 22 issue which hit newsstands today.

The evening began quietly with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, and those who attended brushed elbows with the likes of Nixon-era secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch and CosmoGIRL! founding editor Atoosa Rubenstein.

Vaulted company aside, the festivities got under way a littl More...

... and it's not just the sounds of Ace of Base wafting from the cube of our online editor. In recent weeks, we've heard CMP describe a new Web site as "investigating the future of the Internet." Nielsen Business Media debuted an online resource center for small businesses that it claims "is like no other"-except it is kind of similar to a site attempted by Hammock Publishing several years ago, notes our own Dylan Stableford.

More and more, we're starting to hear the big proclamations that accompanied the early moves of Web 1.0. Part of it is the confidence publishers have gained as they learn from their online experiments and their mistakes. Part of it is that we also seem to be on the verge of a major shift, More...

Spin magazine founder Robert Guccione, Jr. on stepping down from his post as Discover Media CEO and assuming instead the role of chairman: "I'm an entrepreneur, and sometimes we don't always move up, or down, or sideways-we just move."

In a phone conversation with Folio:, Guccione dismissed what he called "rumors" that his stepping down as CEO was initiated by a philosophical fall-out between him and his investors. "There has been gossip, and it all has been exaggerated," he says. " More...