The Future of Magazines Is Squinty
In your wondrous Wednesday media column: a mobile phone-focused magazine launch, a J-school's magical new fee, Stefano Tonchi talks trash, a sluggish growth forecast, and Northeast recruiting explained.
- A bunch of hot shot journalists and editors and the former president of Newsweek are launching Nomad Editions, which is a weekly magazine designed to be read on mobile phones. If you don't read on mobile phones, well, now you know how mobile phone readers feel, about print magazines.
- The Berkeley Grad School of Journalism wants its students to pay a $5,000 "fee" now. What does this fee buy? The right to attend the Berkeley Grad School of Journalism. Doesn't "tuition" cover that? You future journalists are learning valuable lessons about the business world already.
- Stefano Tonchi, the new editor of W magazine, says of WSJ. magazine, ""They have been doing a magazine for a very boring readership." Burn. That's just one bit from this NYO story that very deftly manages to make the entire editorial leadership of W sound very bizarre.
- Private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson issues a media industry forecast every year which is really quite informative. Their latest projections: growth in traditional ad-driven consumer media is "expected to be sluggish at around 2.2 percent," well below average for the entire communications industry. Where's the big growth? In the boring stuff. "Business & Professional Information & Services will be the fastest-growing industry sector from 2009 to 2014." Read more here.
- "Why Aren't New York Start-Ups Recruiting in Boston?" Probably because Boston sucks big time.