In all seriousness, though, there’s room for your ‘online glossy’ and great print magazines in this new media world. And advertisers that know how to spend smart money are going to look at titles who can master both.

I applaud Esquire for making innovative strides to capture revenue from these advertisers – the title is doing more than any other in its category to embrace this fast-changing media arena and the market will decide how well Granger is doing, but I’ll make an analogy…

It’s like ExxonMobil embracing green technology: it’s very hard for a huge, old ship to change its course in time to miss the iceberg when no crew member could see it through the fog.

‘I think what you might be missing on this, Mike, is that there’s no direct translation from print to online’

And this is because … ? You are an ostrich?

The power of the ad unit in print isn’t being questioned by my advertisers – they just know that they can (and should) ask for ways to add value to the buy. Combined, this type of buy is extremely attractive to my advertisers and everyone is happy.

I think what you might be missing on this, Mike, is that there’s no direct translation from print to online. Since both mediums are good at doing different things for a brand, they have to be treated differently, while being able to deliver the same message across mediums. Harley-Davidson is a good example of this: their new campaign is buying alot of print, but they just spent some good money with Vice doing some really innovative things online – neither of which would happen exclusive of each other. H-D knows that their money is only well-spent by doing both. And I could envision H-D looking at this Esquire thing and seeing some real possibilities there…

Neither do anything to reinforce magazines’ ability to deliver an ad unit online that matches the power of the ad unit in print. I think this weakens the position of magazines in the advertising mix brands have at their disposal. It makes other media more appealing.

http://www.vbs.tv/

This is a good example of how a message in a print vehicle can be expounded upon online. Their advertisers are now offered a whole host of opportunities to reach the Vice audience in all kinds of impactful ways.

Another good example is Make magazine:

http://makezine.com/

This is another magazine that’s able to bring their strong print presence to the web in a compelling way – ways that can’t be realized in print alone. BUT, these guys also do an event called Maker’s Fair and other things so that the audience can talk to each other and Make can use the idea of “crowdsourcing” to create a rich environment for advertisers and partners. Good stuff.

These are only two examples, but good examples nonetheless. The best of the industry are paying attention, Mike. And I say, let the thing get narrow!

It makes me sad, perhaps even angry, that this is the case and that print publishers have seen online as competition rather than opportunity and as a result have not led any innovation in translating the experience online. Print has even strategically opposed it.

Apologies for my opening comment and many thanks because I am enjoying our discussion. Also we’re going to have to agree soon because this box is getting very narrow.

Funny – I’ve recently seen a few folks who started websites now trying to add some sort of print magazine version of them…

“innovate of die”

I think you mean:

“innovate OR die”

cheers, ce

Online needs’ prints help. Print is being stand-offish. The loser, the magazine format (print or online).

Your “best of the…industry” know how to do that. How many of them are spread across the industry? I don’t know, but I think we’re seeing Darwinian effects now.

There’s still no direct replacement for the power of a print ad, but I think the crux of this is that alot of magazine people don’t know how to harness it in the way advertisers need them to before they bail out.

Just for the record: traditional print advertisers are not making a wholesale or exclusive move to online. Advertising is down all over the media spectrum, obviously, and online advertising has its host of qualitative/quantitative issues…

The “best of the magazine industry” are busy making magazines that will last and last and last. The magazines that can be replaced by a better website, will be.

It’s not really a transition as much as it is a correction…

Covers and features are already being run with unsharp focus and awful lighting, while few seem to notice. Quality almost doesn’t matter now days anyway, so that argument is perhaps null and void. Anything that’s easier and shaves zeros on the bottom line will always take control.

@Say It Ain’t So: Some photographers are going to have to go away. There are too many to sustain the industry.

@Reader: Megan Fox is one the most beautiful women on the planet. Men don’t care what she does as long as they are allowed to look. This cover will sell, even in this “bad recession”. Is that the ‘big picture’ you were referring to? :)

Wow, they sure did find an unexpected moment with those choice of images. Wow, so unexpected to have her crouched on a white cyc wall, with her hands on her legs, and then have her run her hands over her rear end.

Do all female actresses have to submit to reducing themselves to sex objects in order to receive recognition? Isn’t it a bit humiliating, really?

I’d file this story under “Hype”. You shoot the same standard celeb magazine cover, on white, as any other month, but because it’s a frame grab, it’s revolutionary? Aren’t we missing the big picture here?

The back end of this idea is not new. It’s the web front end that is exciting.

I think this is a gimmick that wont last.

Last thing I want is to loose work from a client because they are just going to pull still from what their videographers got.
The new scarlet and epic cameras wont replace what canon, nikon, leaf, phase one have to offer.
I have yet to see a video camera operate well at high iso, getting quality lenses means the use of clunky adapters and quirky focus.

I mean … what would stop a magazine (or any print pub/ad agency for that matter) from buying a super-video camera and plopping a intern behind it to hit record? Then go and pull out a screengrab?

I’m NOT saying this will happen … but couldn’t happen? Is this the beginning of the end for still photographers? Would photographers really then become producers?

I dunno.

Just throwing it out there.

We’ll certainly be seeing more and more “converged” (damn, I hate that word) media in magazines, movies, and — of course — the internet. And with the upcoming release of the various Scarlet and EPIC cameras, the dividing line between still imagery and moving imagery will become more and more blurred — all while the images themselves become sharper and sharper.

Matt

Cool.