With all the turmoil at Condé (mags for sale) & Hearst (execs jumping) & Time Inc. is no longer the story no one has written: Are magazines--at least large-scale magazines--doomed? Or merely screwed? 1/
I loved magazines. Hell, I started one (Entertainment Weekly). I bought them by the pound. Hudson newsstands had to double-bag my purchases. But in truth: I haven't bought a magazine in ages. When I do buy one, I end up disappointed. Why? 2/
Content used to be scarce. Now there is no greater abundance. There is an overabundance of content and good content. This is why I think it is a mistake to continue to think of journalism as a process of manufacturing a product called content. 3/
Magazine content is also hampered by its fixity, its lack of conversational functionality. And its length: In a battle for attention, a magazine piece is an investment, often too great. This is why I think it is a mistake to continue to think of media as an attention business 4/
The next problem with magazines is scale: the need to get a large audience. General-interest magazines are the walking dead. What would I do with Time Magazine if I had it? I have no damned idea. Journalist as a little something for everyone is outmoded. 5/
And, of course, there is the problem of magazine advertising. It's premium. Hearst, Condé, Time Inc., et al are the houses that hype built. Branding! Publishers knew they were screwed by the net. That's why they started trade groups to sell the wonder of branding w/them. 6/
Targeted advertising with the data that the platforms are smart enough to gather and programmatic advertising with the efficiency a huge market creates increases the competition and thus lowers the value of advertising. Magazines lose. 7/
When I worked for magazine companies, I argued that we needed to go with our strength: serving communities gathered around similar desires, needs, and tastes. The magazine business never learned how to converse. 8/
So whither magazines? I don't know. When I go to Vidcon, I see the magic of community and celebrity built around conversation instead of content. There are still opportunities. But I wonder whether big, old magazine companies can grab them. 9/
I say all this with sorrow. I loved magazines for their style, polish, slickness, alleged perfection. We're concentrating on the death of newspapers and meanwhile, I fear that magazines are suffocating in a corner. I lament that. -30-
