The Next Web

Issuu: is this really publishing 2.0 style?

Written on February 2, 2008 – 7:53 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

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Issuu offers people the possibility to publish their own illustrated magazine. It’s just a matter of spending some time on a pdf file - so start working on your Indesign skills - and uploading it to their beta site. Issuu then publishes your magazine with a slick tool and makes it findable by archiving it in categories like fashion, architecture, arts and.. sex. Yeah sorry, I couldn’t help noticing that the founders aren’t afraid of really explicit sex magazines.

Users can then tell their friends about the magazine they’ve created and embed it on their blog or social network profile. Not that they necessarily need to, since the founders of Issuu also want their service to be a ‘creative community’.

Sounds all pretty publishing 2.0-like, but is it really?

• Yes, it is, because: Everybody can upload pdf-files and gets a really fancy tool to show it. I must admit, the interface looks awesome.
• No, it isn’t, because: Web 2.0 is also about finding stuff, just ask David Weinberger. And an online pdf file sounds a bit 1.0 to me. You can’t link to a particular article and people can’t tag a page on del.icio.us or Fleck, or comment wherever they want. And don’t even think of embedding a YouTube video. It reminds me of the newspapers in the early years of the Internet who just published their articles on-line and that was it.

Yet Issuu is a good stepping stone for everybody who wants to get used to on-line publishing. Think of the people who hardly know what a blog is. They might like the idea, since it reminds them of a ‘real’ magazine. After this getting-used-to-process, they can switch to Wordpress with a magazine-style theme. So they can experience the REAL benefits of publishing 2.0 style.

So imagine that this large group of people who wants to get used to the web starts using Issuu. Then the service might get really popular. However, I don’t think that it will ever become a successful community. Because, in the end, the sex magazines will flourish and frighten other visitors - that, for example, publish magazines about wine from Tuscany.

Not that the founders probably mind, since sex has never been bad for advertising revenues. Yet if they really want a lively community, a ’safe mode’ is a must. A 50-year old lady who uploaded a magazine about interior design, doesn’t want her tennis friends to stumble upon a porn magazine.

community, issuu, magazines, publishing, web 2.0

2 Comments »

Blogs - how to steal advertisers from magazines

Written on January 10, 2008 – 3:26 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France

To know how to steal advertisers from magazines you have to understand how magazines work.

A little history is in order, I used to be the designer and director of a highly successful design, manufacturing and distribution company (Intimidation) out of London during the nineties. One of the most interesting aspects of the business was marketing. It was the one part where you really had to deal with the entire industry, know what was going on, and be at the center of the controversy in order to get the most bang for your bucks (the latter seemed to come naturally).

So I’m this tiny rogue bean in an industrial sized tin of Heinz being baked, the most important thing I had going for me was a unique product, lots of new killer features and plenty to distinguish me from the ‘competition’ which in my case amounted to a ‘one size fits all’ bunch of losers, so that part was easy.

As an advertiser with a very limited budget, I had to maximize the return, I had to know precisely where the advertising would work and how to get it at rates that my competitors would die for. So I made some bold decisions from day one, here was my manifesto in a nutshell.

1) Always do double page spreads,

• you get the best rates;
• they have an impact like none other;
• they intimidate the competition;
• they cannot be ignored.

2) Forget the rate card,

• Call up on p-day (publishing deadline) and offer them silly prices for a DPS, if the rate card said 1k per page, offer them 800UKP Max for a DPS.

3) Focus,

• Have a real top class advert,
• advertise only one product,
• the message had to be crystal clear.
• The product had to almost leap out of the page so that potential buyers could just about grab it (if not pin it to their wall).
• The advert had to be full on war, with a simple but extremely effective caption. To give an example one of our captions was ‘Aural Sex’ (The product was a DJ Mixer BTW). When you get girls phoning up asking you for more information about aural sex you know your on to a good thing.

So what can blogs learn from magazines about advertising and how to poach it away from the mainstream publications. This diatribe rant is to both sides, advertisers and bloggers, as both need to understand what it takes to be effective from each others perspective.

(more…)

advertising, blogs, howto, magazines

6 Comments »