By: Abe Sleestak
Domains Registered September 12, 2022
Some recent domain name registrations. Alternative top-level domains are increasingly in-use, and are becoming more widely recognized and valued by consumers and businesses alike.
For instance, the .MEDIA domain was created to represent advertising, marketing, public relations, design agencies, media buying/production companies, news outlets, media bloggers, celebrity publications, digital publishers & graphic designers. But, .MEDIA could also be used as an excellent domain for digital magazines.
By: Abe Sleestak
Restaurant Magazine has reported that Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is now providing its entire line of proprietary rubs, seasonings and other items for home grillers.
Dickey's released the products, which include their authentic Texas-style seasonings, rubs and hardwood pellets, to home barbecue cooks today. The products are available by ordering online, as well as in local grocery stores such as Wal-Mart and Publix.
In addition to the eight new spices and rubs, Dickey’s added their traditional, original barbecue sauce and eighteen distinctive flavors of wood pellets for their recent expansion of online products.
It's clear the company is seeking to sell barbecue via multiple channels, and satisfy consumers' BBQ cravings by appearing everywhere that people are looking to enjoy the grilled meats with savory sauces.
By: Abe Sleestak
When browsing through my LinkedIn contacts, I recently noticed that several who had previously worked for Magazine Discount Center now had Synapse Group, Inc. listed as their employer as of late 2016.
Knowing the industry, I read this as a likely sign of a quiet acquisition. Magazine Discount Center ("MDC") has become well-known for its consistently high rankings in Google search results for discounts and deals searches for the names of major magazine titles. The company has gradually grown over time, and is a reseller or affiliate partner to a few of the major publisher companies.
I discreetly sent a note to Synapse's Vice President of Communications, Kristen Kish, and she responded that Synapse had indeed acquired MDC, but that the terms of the agreement were confidential
By: Abe Sleestak
In May, Time magazine featured an eye-opening photo of a mother breastfeeding her child, with very clear mouth-to-breast exposure.
[caption id="attachment_133" align="alignright" width="225"] Time Breastfeeding Cover photo by Martin Schoeller. Jamie Lynne Grumet breastfeeds her 3yr old son.[/caption]
The cover is reported to be controversial -- and it is. Our society continues to associate any nudity with sex, and also tends to rather obsess over women's breasts in a fetishistic manner. Public breastfeeding is legal in many areas these days, with pro-breastfeeding activists continuing to push strongly for society to allow women and their children to do what's natural whenever and wherever the time comes.
So, on one hand, the breast on the cover of Time, in conjunction with feeding, really shouldn't even be controversial.
Other magazine industry insiders as reported by Fox News believe Time editors were trying to be purposefully provocative in ...
By: Abe Sleestak
[caption id="attachment_124" align="alignright" width="134"] President Obama Gay Newsweek Cover[/caption]
I neglected to comment earlier this year on the Newsweek magazine cover featuring President Obama with a rainbow-colored halo along with the headline "The First Gay President".
The cover and the headline were, of course, engineered to be highly provocative, because Obama himself isn't gay (one assumes), although his public support of gay rights and gay marriage were something of an historic watershed moment.
The headline perhaps takes too many liberties by playing on the whole stereotype wherein magazines have been known to loudly "out" some celebrity via a cover story (is outing nearly a meme?), intimating through the headline that Obama is gay. However, no one was really fooled by the almost satirical claim.
The question is whether
By: Abe Sleestak
After 80 years on the newsstands, the venerable Newsweek is discontinuing its print version and making the shift to online-only in 2013. The final print edition will hit the stands on December 31, 2012.
First published in February 1933, Newsweek has been the second-largest news weekly magazine in the United States for most of its history, second only to Time in circulation and advertising. However, rising print costs and plummeting print revenue have taken their toll on the magazine, and attempts to shift Newsweek's focus and gain new readers have simply not panned out.
By: Abe Sleestak
BtoBonline.com reports that fewer new print magazines were started up this year compared to last. (227 versus 239)
[caption id="attachment_114" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Printing presses are increasingly a legacy technology - photo of antique steam printing press.[/caption]
Whether good or bad, this is a trend that is very likely to continue.
Even magazines which ought to be successful if managed properly have shuttered, like NFL Magazine which closed after only one quarter of issues.
Print publications have generally been losing marketshare to digital/internet magazines for some time now. An early "canary in the mine" harbinger to signal this trend was The Christian Science Monitor which halted printing of its daily edition in 2009,
By: Abe Sleestak
NSS Magazine (formerly known as Naplestreetstyle.com) is more than a fashion blog. It's a website with a mission to reinvent the popular conception of Naples. Since the early 20th century, the Italian city has been widely perceived as a crime-ridden haven of corruption and mafia activity. But co-founder Vincenzo Schioppa, who attended the University of Federico II in Naples and now works as the marketing director of Italian womenswear label Roberta Biagi, decided it was time to give Naple's public image a facelift.
By: Abe Sleestak
Vanity Fair has reported on how the Church of Scientology had apparently conducted auditions to find a girlfriend for their poster-boy member, Tom Cruise. Scientologists and Cruise's legal representatives have now vehemently denied the claims, calling them "tired old lies" and "hogwash".
By: Abe Sleestak
Time Warner, News Corp and other major magazine publishers are looking for ways to evolve from print publishing products to digital. Will they be successful in making the transition?
