What is claimed to be Europe’s first digital newsagent has launched in Ireland.
Mymagonline.com, which is based in Dublin, delivers magazines, including Irish Garden, PC Live and Car Buyer’s Guide, as PDF files to a computer to be read on-screen. Titles can be bought by the issue or as subscriptions, typically with a discount of 40%.
A first copy of 1960s underground magazine Oz has sold on Ebay for £650, almost double the figure one went for last year. The magazine is a true collectable - or is it just Felix Dennis buying them all up to wallpaper his mansion walls?
Internet access has been ‘cut off’ in an attempt to silence protestors in Burma, The Times has reported. There has been a long history of using such technology to bypass attempts at state control. Indonesian magazine Tempo set up a website to continue publishing after the Suharto regime revoked its publishing licence in 1995.
The news weekly was a thorn in Suharto’s side by attacking his corrupt activities. Unlike the magazine format, Tempo Interaktif did not need a publishing licence and so could not be censored. Threats were made to the staff, but websites in Australia offered to host copies of the pages so they would not be lost. The magazine also published its articles in a book format.
In 1989, Chinese students used faxes to distribute information about protests at Tiananmen Square, both at home and abroad.
But the earliest example I have come across was when Michael Buerk, then the BBC’s reporter in South Africa, used a BBC Micro and modem to send articles back to Britain when links such as telex were cut by the apartheid authorities, possibly as early as 1984.
Some snappy writing on the ShortList website. How’s this for the technology page: ‘Server Error in ‘/’ Application. Specified argument was out of the range of valid values. Parameter name: i’.
Don’t you just love geek speak. I haven’t seen the actual magazine. But it doesn’t grab me from the website. I flicked through the digital edition, but the text is too grey to read with comfort and you can’t scroll around the page to read it.
Digital magazines work best for me when there are lots of great pictures, and a black font that you can blow up.
ShortList reminds me of Cut - and we know what happened to that!
The Economist has launched a new set of ads by leading illustrators. The interesting thing is the how juvenile many of the themes are - dissecting frogs, losing brain cells, swallowing spiders and 6-year-olds in the dark. Obviously going for a younger audience.
I used to regularly walk past an Economist advert on Moorgate in the City of London. It was a large red billboard with a model of a fly bolted to it in the top corner. There was no Economist logo or any other clue. At least I think it was an Economist advert…
I heard at the weekend that my daughter and her friends gained cheap entry and drinks to a London nightclub as long as they did pole-dancing lessons. And a friend’s daughter was propositioned several times after she joined an upmarket escort agency top earn some cash at university.
So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised to read in the Guardian that ‘The websites of magazines for teenage girls are apeing the techniques of so-called “lads’ mags” by urging girls barely out of primary school to upload photographs of themselves and post highly critical ratings of their own and others’ bodies ‘.
Girls teen title Minx tried similar tactics back in 1996 (though not so blatantly). It was described as a cross between Company and Loaded, that aimed to sell to ‘young, assertive, rather scary young women’. Emap closed Minx in 2000, despite sales of 120,000 a month.
Perhaps these tacky websites should do us all a favour and close down now.
Shortlist, the free men’s weekly with former FHM editor Mike Soutar as chief exec, which is to launch on September 20, has released two more dummy covers. And Media Week reports the magazine has announced its sales people. The title will also be available as a digital magazine using the same Ceros technology as Monkey.
Amazon plans to sell a wireless electronic book reader as early as next month, following the recent US launch of the Sony eBook Reader, says the Independent. Sony’s device is the size of a hardback, stores up to 80 books and lasts 7,500 pages on a single charge.Bloomsbury is supposed to be keen on getting digital Harry Potter books out and Penguin has begun digitising all its books.
However, this field is littered with the bones of past attempts of ebook readers - mention it to Microsoft and they’re probably still spitting on their effort, which was supposed to result in a change in the main definition of the word ‘book’ by 2012 .
Finnish publisher Sanoma is the latest company reported as being interested in bidding for Emap’s consumer magazines, according to the Observer. It joins German publisher Gruner & Jahr, France’s Lagardere and Hachette-Filipacchi , and Grazia’s Italian owner Mondadori.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph has reported that Emap is so determined to sell the business it might ask its own banks to lend money to bidders.
Mondadori has said it is not interested. To which the Times said: ‘Don’t believe Mondadori’s on-the-record denial that it is interested in Emap’s consumer magazines. It is. Italian publishing is complex.’
On Tuesday, the Times said private-equity group Quadrangle, which has already bought Dennis Publishing’s US arm for £120 million, had asked for details about Emap’s consumer division.
CMP and Guardian Media Group covet the business magazines, such as the Nursing Times and Construction News, as do private equity companies, including VSS and Apax Partners.
The Financial Times has said as many as 30 potential buyers have had informal talks with Emap. However, Bertelsmann, the German media group, told the paper it is not interested in Emap.
Today’s Financial Times picks up on two magazine stories - both from Condé Nast titles. The paper’s People column in the UK edition quotes a Portfolio story (’Blackmail, sex and corporate secrets‘) that BP chief Lord Browne balked at revealing his sexual orientation during a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs about Così Fan Tutte, the first opera he attended, despite careful preparation.
Meanwhile, the Observer column in the US FT ignores Nicole Kidman baring her all and homes in on the ‘juicy titbits’ from October’s Vanity Fair about spats between billionaires Stephen Schwarzman and Henry Kravis, of private equity groups Blackstone and KKR respectively.
Schwarzman, ‘who often spend $3,000 on a weekend’s worth of food’, did not invite Kravis to his 60th birthday party, which featured Rod Stewart, because Kravis failed to invite him to his flat for dinner. Poor dears.
