Author / Magdiaries

by Magdiaries

The magazine’s not the product

A magazine is an eclectic compendium of engaging content ephemera.

We can make that compelling for readers in all sorts of ways on many different platforms and through all sorts of distribution technologies. Some of these technologies which may be even more disruptive than those we know today, have not yet been invented.

A magazine that will survive is not a dead tree with ink on it re-rendered for the latest disruptive technology. And yet that’s what many publishers are trying to do.

A publisher’s product is not the magazine.  Rather it is the relationship it has with its readers.

Neil Thackray | Co-Founder & CEO, Briefing Media


Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

Eat, sleep, publish, repeat

Cave drawings, handwritten news-sheets, Julius Cesar’s Acta Diurna carved in stone, Chinese government news-sheets, just one gazetta for the Notizie scritte, Relaciones, The Ladies Mercury, The Gentleman’s Magazine (first use of the term ‘magazine’ derived from Arabic for storehouse), printing presses and the Industrial Revolution, photos sent by wire, four-colour rotary press, global distribution, computer-setting, DTP, iPad, smartphone, html, fully interactive, wearables, voice control…

What’s next? A virtual reality screen on dust particles? Magazines have and always will evolve and people will always want well curated content.

Change happens, embrace it. Explore the possibilities, keep open minded.

Enjoy the ride.

Bruce Hudson | Founder, The Digital Magazine Awards

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Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

We know who we are

Some insanely prosperous times – when advertisers were supporting magazines almost as enthusiastically as readers – clouded things. We got carried away and sometimes even confused advertising-fuelled profits with reader euphoria. But let’s not be fooled again.

The 21st century decline in revenue and readers will kill some companies and many brands. But it cannot kill off the magazine. The magazine is not a format, but a mood, meeting place, badge, and a sense of belonging.

Whether in hard copy or digital-something, magazines belong to readers and users who are united by a shared passion.

We know who we are.

Colin Morrison | Media blogger, sometime magazine editor and publisher, Flashes & Flames



Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

In Memorandum?

Every new technology kills off the one before it, right?

Radio eradicated theatre. TV annihilated radio. VCR exterminated TV. And the internet is going to destroy it all, magazines included…

Apparently not. Along with thriving theatres, vibrant radio, massive growth in TV programme recording, magazines can’t and won’t give in to the gloomy predictions of the naysayers.

What actually happens when a new medium appears is that people accommodate it in their lives alongside the media they already love… as long as those media continue to evolve and provide irreplaceable value.

That’s what print has to do. And it will.

Diane Kenwood | Editor, Woman’s Weekly



Grub Street Journal
by Magdiaries

Berlin, 1945

What’s it like to be in magazines today?

Berlin, 1945.

The smart ones have already disappeared. The leadership, out of touch and in denial, clings to outdated policies and spouts nonsensical dogma.

The footsoldiers are doomed and desperate; only those unable to desert remain at their posts. Defeat is certain.

However, I was in Berlin only recently and it’s lovely. Which isn’t a lot of use when you’re eating your own shoes, but I still hope that in a few years we’ll be able to rebuild something different yet recognisably magazine-like.

Now? Not great… Anyone got a tasty rat?

Chris Maillard | Content Specialist

 



Grub Street Journal