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MagazineShift
Ladies' Home Journal Ventures Into Bold Crowdsourcing Experiment
In 1900, Ladies' Home Journal published an article containing predictions for the year 2000. Though some of the author's predictions were accurate -- Americans are indeed taller, and photographs are now sent around the world -- one key point was missing. The author didn't imagine that in the new millennium, the very magazine that published his predictions would no longer...
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MagazineShift
Getting a Tablet Is Easy; Getting Digital Magazines Is a Pain
Buying that new iPad, Kindle or Nook for Christmas is just the first step to becoming a digital magazine reader. While shopping for books and movies is a fairly straightforward process, getting your favorite magazines onto your new e-reading device can be trickier. The ways you can buy a magazine are rapidly multiplying, making it harder for readers to evaluate...
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MagazineShift
Finding the Right Blend of Print and Digital at Meredith's Recipe.com
I'll take the Florentine lasagna, please, with a 2D barcode and a mobile app on the side. Food magazines pride themselves on delectable recipes and luscious photography. Recipe.com, whose title is also its website's URL, is a new publication from magazine giant Meredith, and while every recipe is indeed accompanied by a photo, the print magazine's content is thoughtfully integrated...
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Education
How to Get the Most Out of Tech Tools for Teaching
Though you don't have to use technology to teach effectively, sometimes a little bit of tech can go a long way toward making the job easier. And, of course, teaching media and journalism courses today requires that instructors be familiar with as many different technology tools as possible -- and be willing to experiment with the rest.
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MagazineShift
Once Magazine Takes the Photo Magazine into the App World
Photographers who might have aspired to see their work published on the glossy pages of a magazine can now opt for the glossy screen of an iPad. Once Magazine, a "visual storytelling" app for the iPad, is a new showcase for photographers' work and related multimedia. The app provides three cohesive photo essays, each with an array of high-resolution photos...
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EducationShift
Teaching Magazine Journalism Beyond the Magazine
While magazine industry professionals struggle to come up with the best ways to use today's technology, magazine journalism educators are working hard to prepare their aspiring co-workers. Journalism schools with strong magazine programs have developed innovative courses and assignments to challenge students to think beyond the printed page. Three magazine journalism educators shared specific innovations and ways of thinking that...
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MagazineShift
Smartphone Sensors Could Revolutionize Digital Magazines
We've all done those personality and health quizzes in magazines. You know, the ones where you suspect that answer A will categorize you as the personality type you're trying to avoid, so you choose B instead. Everyone does that, right? These evasive strategies for magazine quizzes, though, could be a thing of the past as smartphones and tablet devices evolve...
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MagazineShift
Solving the App Development Conundrum for Small Magazines
Even a small magazine can make a powerful impression with a well-designed mobile presence. In some ways, digital platforms can level the playing field for small publishers wanting to attract readers' attention with innovative content and presentations. But getting onto mobile platforms with apps and optimized websites can be a significant challenge for small publishers. While major magazine companies like...
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MagazineShift
Children's Magazines Cater to True Early Adopters with Mobile Apps
Digital magazines designed for kids are giving new meaning to the phrase "early adopter." Children's magazines have come a long way from those dusty print editions at the pediatrician's office. While adults struggle to join the transition to digital magazines and apps, their offspring are moving seamlessly into the new age of publishing. Kids now have a variety of digital...
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MagazineShift
How B2B Magazines Have Evolved into Multi-Platform Brands
You won't see Angelina Jolie on their covers anytime soon. But like their consumer magazine counterparts, business-to-business (B2B) magazines bring in serious money, and have become far more than just print publications.
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MagazineShift
Apple Takes Big Bite Out of Digital Subscriptions for Small Mags
With new restrictions on subscription opportunities -- and the large portion of income from them that will now be claimed by Apple (30%), in particular -- some indie magazines are reconsidering their digital efforts, and wondering whether they're still worthwhile.
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MagazineShift
How the Kindle Made Single-Story Sales a Reality for Magazines
I've never seen a "Not for Individual Sale" label on a magazine story. So why can't I buy most individual magazine articles in digital form just yet? Selling stand-alone stories has seemed like a potential business model for magazines and other journalism organizations since the rise of iTunes. Observers hyped an incipient micropayment business model for journalism. But few companies...
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MagazineShift
iPads, Print-on-Demand Slowly Transform Magazines in 2010
This revolution is going to take its time. It's been a year of high expectations but little fulfillment for those who thought 2010 might forever change the way we read magazines. We've seen that disappointing uses of new tools, limited audience interest, and small initial financial returns are going to result in a gradual shift, not a sudden transformation....
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MagazineShift
City Magazines Expand Audience and Revenues with Web, Apps
Even back in 1888, King Kalakaua of Hawaii recognized the power of city and regional magazines. His royal charter led to the creation of the magazine Paradise of the Pacific, whose goal was to display the civilization of the islands and to draw tourists and business. Kalakaua would be amazed by the transformation of the publication now called Honolulu Magazine....
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MagazineShift
Narrative Magazine Takes the Literary World Digital
Poetry on your iPhone. Short stories on your Kindle. Or, if you're not yet into e-reading, how about a complete print-on-demand literary magazine? However you like your literature, Narrative Magazine has you covered. Literary magazines aren't exactly known yet for their digital expertise. This genre of magazines has moved slowly into the online realm, mainly publishing limited web content. But...
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MagazineShift
Activist Magazines Foster Debate Online, Strong Bonds in Print
Climate change. Immigration. Economic crisis. Consumerism. These are all major issues covered by the magazines Mother Jones and Orion, and both magazines have won awards for their high-quality journalism. At the same time, they are nonprofits with tight budgets and ongoing fundraising campaigns. Both magazines have found new energy through digital media, and have developed many opportunities to get their...
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MagazineShift
Gourmet Live, Quilting eMag Rethink Magazines in Digital Form
In an earlier age, we learned new skills as apprentices to master craftspeople, absorbing expertise by working side by side. Today, though, you might be more likely to learn a new craft or skill from a website or through a social media buddy -- or even from a digital magazine. Traditional print magazines that teach hands-on skills are extending their...
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MagazineShift
Magazine Writers Are Slow to Take Up Multimedia
An ideal pitch for a magazine story today would seem to require great possibilities for text and for multimedia. Freelance magazine writers, one would think, would be honing their multimedia skills so they could pitch well-rounded stories to editors who could feature them in print, on the web and on an iPad or mobile device. Surprisingly, though, freelance magazine writers...
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MagazineShift
'48 Hour' Births Crowdsourced, Print-on-Demand Mag in Public
The first issue of 48 Hour Magazine, though printed on old-fashioned paper, is one of the most technologically interesting magazine projects today. The staff of 48 Hour Magazine sent off its finished "Issue Zero" to MagCloud, a print-on-demand service, at noon on May 9 after a harried two-day submission, editing and design process. Following weeks of building buzz about the...
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MagazineShift
The Ethics of Digital Magazine Advertising
In my recent discussions with magazine editors, executives and experts, I've heard a lot about how magazines will integrate new forms of advertising, and "monetization" opportunities, into their digital content. From digital editions to social media to mobile apps, magazines are exploring a variety of ways to provide advertisers with novel opportunities to reach audiences, just as they have in...
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MagazineShift
Magazines Require Innovation, Experiments in Digital and Print
Some magazine fans may feel like their favorite publications are dissolving into fragments of their former selves: fractured content distributed throughout the web, social media, digital editions and the surviving print versions. But something unique to magazines does still hold at the center, and a new report on the future of magazines suggests that the future for both print and...
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MagazineShift
How Magazines Use Social Media to Boost Pass-Along, Build Voice
Magazines have always prided themselves on their longevity as a medium and their pass-along circulation -- the additional readers each copy gains when it's passed from hand to hand. Today, social media are providing opportunities for readers to share content and experience their favorite magazines as part of their social activity online. As a result, this is the dawn of...
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MagazineShift
On-Demand Publishing Opens Up Magazine Industry
Publishing a magazine independently used to mean spending a lot of money ordering hundreds or thousands of printed copies, and then hoarding the unsold inventory in dusty boxes in your garage for the next decade. The new pioneers in on-demand magazine publishing hope to save aspiring publishers from this expensive and cluttered fate. Online services that streamline the magazine publishing...
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MagazineShift
What to Expect From the 'iTunes for Magazines'
Apple appears poised to introduce a much-anticipated product: the once seemingly-mythical "iSlate" or "iTablet," its first tablet-style touch-screen computer. Though the potential of an Apple tablet thrills many fans of the company, it's also piqued the interest of magazine publishers, who -- long before the device's rumored introduction -- foresaw its possibilities for their industry. The announcement in early December...
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MagazineShift
Condé Nast, Hachette Magazines Push into iPhone Apps
Turning a magazine into an iPhone app might seem as simple as shrinking the printed page to about a sixth of its normal size. But as magazines develop iPhone and other mobile applications to supplement their print editions, they're finding that adapting to the new medium is a significant challenge. Years ago, magazines realized that their websites had to do...
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MagazineShift
Did the Web Kill Gourmet Magazine?
The murder happened in the kitchen with a laptop. That possible explanation for the death of Gourmet magazine sounds like a solution from the game Clue. The 68-year-old food magazine met its end this month when publisher Condé Nast cut it and two other magazines. Some blamed Gourmet's demise on the Internet and its theft of the print audience. It's...
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