Category Archives: The Future

Magnum’s Turnaround Business Plan

ArtInfo.com has a little more depth on the sale of the Magnum print archive worth an estimated $100 million to Michael Dell’s MSD Capital. A couple bits from Magnum’s managing director Mark Lubell reveal that he “developed a three-year ‘turnaround business plan’ to move the co-op away from the revenue streams it had traditionally relied [...]

Building Trust With Your Potential Clients

I know I’m more of an optimist than most, but whenever I see something like this it makes me think that the free culture/attitude is less about “I want everything for free” and more about “I’m tired of being lied and tricked into buying something and I need a way to trust you before we [...]

D-Day For Tablet Freaks

UPDATE: iPad

Everyone in the media industry will be waiting with baited breath as Apple unveils its tablet computer today (live here at 10am PST)
Will the Apple tablet save publishing? No.
It will force them to get off their collective duffs and start investing in defending their brand digitally, but just like the music industry the business [...]

The Beginning Of The End?

Jamie Kripke: Hey Rob – have you seen this:

Jamie: 98% CGI by a 30 year old dude in Spain with a single PC. It’s beautiful. We’ve all seen a lot of CGI over the years, but it’s usually just a bit off, or just too slick and most of it is really expensive, and [...]

The Press Tour – Holdover From Another Era

I found this press tour video over on Michael Lavine’s blog and nothing sums up the demise of media better then seeing the 300 interviews (photos, video, radio and 1 ring flash too) Jason Reitman endured promoting his film, Up In The Air.

Here’s a pie chart with the top 10 interview questions:

Lady GaGa Named Creative Director at Polaroid

No, I am not f-ing with you.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

How 2010 Is Shaping Up For Advertising

Advertising Age has a look at how advertising is shaping up for the various categories in 2010 (here):
Automotive
“Ford Motor Co.’s Jim Farley, group VP-global marketing, told a conference that the automaker plans to spend half its 2010 ad budget on ‘experiential’ and online marketing, because 75% of new-vehicle buyers now shop online.”
Beer
“…some beer marketers acknowledge [...]

Are You Ready For The Frustration Decade?

Seth Godin is calling the 2010’s the frustration decade (here). We’ve all experienced the frustration with the old way of doing things not working anymore and now the growing frustration with all the cool technology and new ways of doing business not being robust enough. Combine that with slow economic turnaround and I’ll agree it’s [...]

Predictions for 2010

Folio Magazine has their annual Magazine and Media Predictions for 2010 (here) and there are a few choice quotes I’ve highlighted below. I’ve got a few of my own predictions:
Slightly down is the new up.
We will see fire sale buyouts (a la Business Week) of a few big titles rather than shuttering (a la Gourmet).
More [...]

Another Digital Concept Magazine

Publisher Bonnier worked with design agency BERG to come up with the Mag+ tablet:

via, Gizmodo
I like this guy already because he says the page flipping is lame (my word) and scrolling is more natural. I also like the idea where you find the things you’re interested in reading in an image based environment and then [...]

Best Multimedia Story From Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar

John Adkisson, a journalism student at UNC Journalism School Chapel Hill won best multimedia story at the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar.

via, Alvarez – Picture Stories.

Time Inc’s “Manhattan Project” Is A Tablet Magazine

TechCrunch has the goods on Time Inc’s solution to the demise of print media:

Since last summer, Time Inc has been working on a “Manhattan Project” to create a digital magazine for the new breed of color tablet computers soon to come to market. (Condé Nast is also working on a similar concept). Today, I got [...]

AOL to Automate Some Content Selection, Editing

CEO Tim Armstrong tells The Wall Street Journal about plans he has previously hinted about–“a new digital-newsroom system that uses a series of algorithms to predict the types of stories, videos and photos that will be most popular with consumers and marketers.”
The idea is that even a brain-dead editor knows that people want to read [...]

Closing The Gap Between Online And Offline Advertising

Online video represents only a small piece of the total advertising pie, but the growth in streaming ad revenue is becoming more of a threat to the broadcast medium that supplies most of the high CPM content. Hulu is a case in point, as Mediaweek and paidContent sources point out the ways the site’s ad [...]

Photographer iPhone Marketing Apps- Cutting Edge Promotion or Money Hole With A Fresh Coat of Paint?

I’m not surprised that the king of promotions (Monte Isom) was the first to come out with an iPhone app as a marketing piece (here). It usually pays to be the first so I’m sure it worked for him in the way that a well made mailer might and as a method for cutting through [...]

A New Model For Old Media And An Old Model For New Media

Maggwire.com, a company I’ve written about before, has a plan to charge users for a subscription to a channel that sounds really good to me. There should be a way for magazines to sell content in pieces, so people can assemble their own based on their interests. Also, it’s a good way to recapture the [...]

Andrew Zuckerman – Bird

Andrew Zuckerman seems to have figured out how he wants to use new media to spread the word about these books and films he’s pumping out. He creates a simple custom site: http://www.birdbook.org/; then a vimo channel for the 9 excerpt and behind the scenes videos: http://vimeo.com/channels/bird#5701425; then the publisher (chronicle) has a site with [...]

A Couple Docs Shot With A Stills Camera

Photographers are doing some amazing things shooting video with the Canon 5D Mark II. Here are a couple that I saw that made me go “wow” when I heard they were shot on a stills camera. I have no idea how they will hold up on a 50″plasma TV, but who’s got time to watch [...]