Virgin to announce rival iPad paper to Murdoch's The Daily

Richard Branson, an aggressive entrepreneur on several fronts, has announced that his company Virgin will unveil a custom-built iPad magazine in New York next week. According to a story in the Guardian, the new paper will be more entertainment and less current affairs than the impending launch of the similar iPad paper The Daily being hustled to market by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (in

Making magazine websites effective and accessible

Here are some of the things that Rhett Soveran, web editor of Westjet’s up! magazine told an Alberta Magazine Publishers Association digital learning seminar recently about how to make a magazines's website effective: a user should be able to go three levels into your site and easily return to the homepage 
Think of your magazine website as more than just an extension of your magazine, but

Nomad Editions says it will combine virtue of great magazines with multi-platform digital delivery

It was inevitable that someone would seek and find a way to sidestep Apple; it seems that a new subscription-based mobile content provider called Nomad Editions may be showing the way that magazines could reach their readers on iPads and smartphones of all kinds. Or as a new business model for digital media it may eclipse many of them. Nomad is scheduled to launch October 15 The publication (

Jailed Cannabis Culture publisher blogs and podcasts to pass the time

If the U.S authorities thought that slapping the former publisher and editor-in-chief of Cannabis Culture magazine in jail would shut him up, they hadn't reckoned with Marc Emery. Formally extradited to the USA on Thursday, May 20th, 2010, Emery appeared in Seattle federal court to enter a (negotiated) guilty plea on May 24. He had surrendered on charges relating to selling marijuana seeds by

House & Home TV show now to be self-produced online rather than on TV

House and Home Media, the publishers of Canadian House & Home magazine, is switching its House & Home Television programming online, leaving a 12-year relationship with conventional television. It has aired on CTV, Global and HGTV, dating back to 1998, when CTV first launched a new daily show hosted by publisher Lynda Reeves. It was said to be the first of its kind in Canada."Much has changed

U.S. magazine website traffic up 8.5% in second quarter

Traffic is up 8.5% for the most recent quarter on the 314 consumer magazine websites tracked by the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA). The total was an average 69.7 million unique monthly visitors over 64.2 million during the same period last year, according to the most recent figures from the MPA.Magazine Web site users accounted for an average of 462.8 million "sessions" per month during the

The online view from Up Here

Up Here magazine, published out of Yellowknife, has launched a new website that the magazine's editors hope will make it the portal for all things northern. Jessa Sinclair, the associate editor, calls the new site "snazzy" and we're inclined to agree.Along with a 20-year archive and other features, including contests and polls, the new site is carrying daily dispatches from staffer Michael Ganley

No online slackers allowed, says Time editor

Time magazine is turning up the heat under its writers and columnists to contribute to Time.com as well as the print magazine. The website was re-launched 4 months ago and while editor Richard Stengel says the results have been good, they're not good enough. According to an item carried in Gawker, he sent a memo to all staff that said,in effect,the future of their jobs depended upon it. As good

Quote, unquote: Smithsonian editor on print, web and the future of magazines

I think that magazines will survive as print entities, and I think that there will be a kind of Darwinian fallout. I think the fittest will survive. I think other magazines will migrate to the Web, and we’re certainly investing in and looking at the Web. But I do think that the tactile pleasure of carrying a magazine and reading a magazine and turning the pages will continue for as far as the eye

Portal strategies become increasingly important to all magazines

Since there can be no doubt that most magazines want to have as robust a web presence as they can afford, for multi-title publishers there seem to be a choice of ways to go: standalone websites for each title, styled and presented with its own voice or image; and portals, which gather together different titles and present their information and archives in a consistent way. Magazine companies are

Is this the shape of things to come?

“We think the traditional publisher’s role is kind of disappearing. Advertisers are looking for integrated programs so the agencies will have one source to go to for both print and online. We are changing our structure in anticipation of that for the day that it happens. In some cases it’s happened already.”-- Entrepreneur Media Inc. president Neil Perlman With that, the publishers of

The digital Walrus

Interesting story on Media in Canada about the various digital initiatives being taken at The Walrus magazine. The new management at the magazine seems to be getting some traction in pursuing new, revenue-producing initiatives.The magazine's website boasts a new "Media Centre," where digital content seekers can find everything from audio versions of content streamed by broadcast reading service

Teen People web venture to be wound up

Apparently it was not a brave, new world for TeenPeople.com, the online version of Teen People, which Time Inc has announced will be subsumed within the People magazine website. It has been less than a year since the print magazine was discontinued with a lot of bold talk about the digital future.The readers of Teen People were said to be more attuned to accessing the content online, making the

Online sub sourcing no panacea, says Capell

It's a classic case of good news, bad news:More magazines are selling more subscriptions online than ever before, but the phenomenon seems to have peaked;Most subs come through the publishers own websites, but in order for online sourcing to grow, more reliance will have to be put on other people's sites, where payup is a problemThis, according to a story in MediaWeek, quoting circulation guru

Smashing idea -- an international logo design contest

Wow, there's a lot of good and interesting work going on out there. Smashing Magazine, a very interesting web publication out of Saarbrucken, Germany, that started just last August, held a competition for a new logo for its site. And in just three weeks, the ideas just poured in, from all around the globe. One of the finalists (the winner is to be announced tomorrow) is by someone from Canada (

Flare relaunches web site

Flare, the Rogers fashion flagship, has announced the relaunch of Flare.com, its website. According to the magazine's press release, among the new features is a monthly celebrity 'Style Setter' spotlight, an interactive astrology section that allows users to find their perfect 'Love Match', a new Flash tool that allows readers to 'Get the Look' from actual Flare covers, two new blogs (The Lazy