Last summer U.S. News & World Report went from a weekly publication to a bi-weekely. In November the magazine went to a monthly schedule.
Today Portfolio is reporting the soft launch of a digital newsweekly that mimics the old weekly format of the magazine:
But U.S. News hasn't given up on the idea of the weekly news digest. In fact, later today, in a soft launch, it will rolling out a new product: a "digital newsweekly" that reproduces, in pixels, what the magazine once did in ink and paper.
The U.S. News Weekly subscription page has more details:
Each week, you'll get the in-depth perspective and news analysis that are the hallmark of U.S. News. But since this new magazine is digital, you'll get it quickly, often within hours of the reporter's dispatches. What's more, you'll experience a news magazine in a whole new way. With embedded video and audio podcasts, you'll gain fresh insight as you hear from the reporter or newsmaker directly or watch the event unfold. And you'll be the first to know what's happening in the nation's capital, as we'll deliver to the U.S. News Weekly subscriber our freshest reporting and analysis.
Digital distribution of magazines is not new. Many titles use platforms like Zinio or Nxtbook to distribute digital versions. U.S. News Weekly will be distributed via PDF.
Will this be a successful product? Can this edition be read on the current mainstream ereaders (does that matter)?
Discussion
By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 27, 2009
My two cents:
The web is great to identify tribes who will willingly buy stuff. Print is the easiest stuff to make to sell them.
Advertising is a shrinking pie. Selling stuff to people who are willing to pay for it is a growing market on the ground. If somehow commercial printers could network with print ad salesman they could do together what neither can do by themselves.
Sell marketing solutions to SMB business at a price they are willing to pay.
If US News uses the e version for what the web is good at. And use Print for what it's good at. The future looks pretty bright, IMHO. If the drink the Kool-aid about significant revenue from web clicks, they are toast.
By Andrew Tribute on Jan 28, 2009
The changes we are seeing are not just the digital newsweekly but all forms of publication. If content, rather than quality presentation, where accurate and imposing color is not important, we are likely to see more and more publications move to a digital only structure.
In the UK I am mourning the loss of what was one of my favorite publications as I grew up long ago. Exchange and Mart was for as long as I can remember, and no doubt for years before that, the essential publication for everyone. It was the 'printed eBay' before the founders of eBay were conceived with ads for everything, and I really mean everything. This publication with a pagination of often more the 300 A4 pages had a circulation of multiple hundreds of thousands. This publication was also one I advised and spent many years working with the publisher helping them develop more advanced versions of the printed publication. To show my age this was before Mr Berners-Lee (someone who I used as a sub-contractor in an earlier business role), invented the World Wide Web. In my youth, and later, I bought all sorts of products such as motor cycles, cars, boat equipment, and even a limited company (in the days before money laundering became a popular pastime). We have just seen the final printed edition of Exchange & Mart and in future the publishers feel that their online edition has built enough market presence to allow them to close the printed edition. The cause of this is stated as pressure from eBay and organizations like Craig's List. No doubt the former is significant but since Craig's List is hardly established in the UK I feel that the PR people writing the press release have read too much coming from the USA in preparing their release.
This shows the power of immediacy in advertising and shows that people no longer delight in spending hours browsing the pages of ad magazines looking at the bargains on offer. Instead we go to Car Boot sales (no doubt in the US you call them Car Trunk sales) looking for cheap bargains. I fully expect that soon when I buy a nice e-Reader (Plastic Logic would be my choice rather than Kindle or Sony), I once again can browse the Online or WiFi transmitted edition of Exchange and Mart, along with eBay and others, to browse new toys for curmudgeons wherever I am.
Unfortunately any information that is required as soon as it is available will move to an online or WiFi transmitted media. This will be classified type advertising without color images, news content, and items where long-term retention is unimportant. As e-Readers get better and cheaper this will become ever more significant.
By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 28, 2009
Andy,
Do you think there is an opportunity for neighborhood based Print ads in niche focused newsPapers?
The thought is that there is still plenty of downtime in a neighborhood, at least in Brooklyn and I'm pretty sure that is replicable outside the hub bub of busyness.
I'm thinking of a team sales effort that included a Commercial Print Salesperson + A newspaper Ad sales person + a designer.
It would be a one point contact to sell Newspaper Ads + Web ads + print collateral + advertising specialities. With a growth possibilities of putting up a web site, or getting content ready for the Iphone.
My thought is that every Small Medium Business thinks they need "marketing". If the comp were based on measurable results, I think it is both sustainable and scales going forward.
Any thoughts?
Discussion
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