September 2007

Tough Love
There have been some early, sweeping changes at Reader’s Digest Association in the last few months since Mary Berner took over as president and CEO following the sudden $2.4 billion acquisition of the company by an investment group led by...
M&A Scorecard – September 2007
Hearst checks in this issue with its second online-related acquisition in two weeks, buying social shopping site Kaboodle. Hearst’s earlier deal, $150 million for UGO.com, is differentiated by its content focus. The Kaboodle deal involves social networking functionality designed to...
Building Your Online Team? Prepare To Pay
In the cover story for Folio:’s August issue, called “Building the Big Idea,” Hanley Wood CEO Frank Anton discussed the cost of building an online business,
Budget Brainstorming
What changes are magazines planning to make when setting their 2008 budgets? Is cutting costs and hunkering down the answer? How about increasing spending on online and events-related initiatives? Here’s what a collection of industry executives say they will be...
Integrated Billing
Multi-platform, integrated sponsorship sales—from pages to Web sites to events—have become big-ticket sales for magazine publishers. Indeed, most are now in a position to offer a wide range of programs. The challenge, however, is managing the sale post-close—especially when billing...
A Stock Index Becomes Part of New-Product Emphasis for CurtCo
The recent launch of the Robb Report Global Luxury Index—which tracks stock price performance of luxury goods and services companies—is part of an effort to move the company beyond the perception of being “just” a magazine publisher. “We do not...
Face Up
Face UpFriday, August 31, 2007This Month: Scientific American
Creating a Rewarding Awards Program
Magazine publishers have a unique opportunity to heighten their brand position—not to mention drive revenue—by developing awards programs for the industries they serve. But a well-run program requires a significant effort in building the brand and developing a back-end workflow...
Catching up with Circulation Fulfillment
Circulation fulfillment has changed fairly drastically over the last few years, thanks to the Internet and the advent of new technologies. But it’s still all about customer relationship management.
The Evolution of the Webinar
Cheap to put on and generally free to attend, Webinars—in which a publisher delivers a seminar online to a remote audience—have reached critical mass. Publishers that did a handful of Webinars in 2006 have hundreds planned for 2007 and 2008....
Is Time on Your Side?
Nielsen//NetRatings announced in July that it was adding “total minutes” to its syndicated Internet measurement service. ComScore, another measurement company, also uses this time-based metric in determining how users are interacting with a Web site. The announcement echoed what many...
Make Web Traffic Everyone’s Business
In August 2006, b-to-b publisher Access Intelligence transformed its circulation department into an audience development department, which would focus on Web and traffic-building as part of its overall audience-generating efforts.
Regional Magazine Makes a Case for Smart Spending
While many print publications have tried in recent years to increase their margins by both cutting on staff and paying less for freelance work, the local and national success of 5280—a Denver-based city and regional magazine—represents an argument for an...
‘Narrow-cast’ Your E-mail Newsletters
Trends in the market are influencing how CMP’s Business Technology Group produces its e-mail newsletter products. According to Stephen Wellman, editorial director of e-mail newsletters for the group, broad-market, high-circ newsletters are giving way to smaller, more targeted products.
Brand Marketing: An Inside Look
Paste’s brand is literally soaring. The independently published, Decatur, Georgia-based entertainment magazine has partnered with Beat Marketing to produce “The PASTE BEAT,” an audio channel for American Airlines.
Face Up: Scientific American
This Month: Scientific AmericanIssue: September 2007Frequency: MonthlyLaunched: 1845Circulation: 575,000Editor: John RenniePublisher: Holtzbrinck Publishers