We spent the last month looking back at the first decade, and now we’re ready to look forward. What’s going to happen in the custom media industry in 2010? Do we need to get out our credit cards to read content online? Change our magazine format to read better on the new tablets? Start looking for a return on those viral videos?
In this featured video, your favorite TMGers predict the five ways content will change this year. Communications Manager Rebecca Loveridge predicts new devices will put the emphasis back on original, quality content. Principal Richard Creighton believes people will start paying for content. Video Publishing Director Kate Ottenberg says publishers will focus on ROI with online video programming. Washington Flyer Editor Michael McCarthy says magazines will walk back from the plank. Social Media Director Andrew Hanelly believes social media will get fragmented.
How do you think content will change in 2010? Tell us!
Some advertising might not be as influential as it was in years past, but custom publishing broke all records in 2009. Seventy percent of companies say branded content is more effective than television advertising; 61% say it is more effective than direct mail and 57% say it is more effective than public relations, according to a recent study by the Custom Publishing Council in conjunction with ContentWise.
Turns out marketers poured more money into branded content in 2009 than ever before. The results showed that total spending on branded content was over $1.8 million per company, with 51% spent on print publications, 27% on Internet media and 22% on categories such as video or audio. That means 2009 spending was double that of 2008 and the highest amount since the CPC began conducting the survey in 2003.
The ContentWise and Custom Publishing Councils’ 2009 Spending: A Look at How Corporate America Invests in Branded Content was conducted via online and mailed methods targeting a random sample of companies across all industries. Among the responding companies were: Booz Allen Hamilton, Costco Wholesale, General Electric Energy, Honda Financial Services, State Farm Insurance, VistaCare, and World Vision.
The industry is buzzing about today’s announcement of a digital storefront for publishers (read the AdAge story here), but that’s not the only thing going on in the print-to-digital content world…
Conde Nast and Adobe are building a digital version of Wired magazine, according to the Wall Street Journal. The e-reader app will be available sometime next year, and then Conde Nast will move on to building apps for the rest of its titles. The app will let readers flip through the pages as if they were in print, as well as access additional layers of content, launch videos, and link to the Web. Read the Wall Street Journal Story here.
Meanwhile, Hearst is launching a service and online store in 2010 that will deliver newspapers and magazines from a variety of publishers on a variety of electronic devices. Called Skiff, the service will work with Sprint to connect readers through dedicated Skiff e-readers sold in Sprint stores, as well as other devices. Read the FOLIO story here.
The media world has been buzzing about this for months. Now, finally, the plans for a large digital newsstand (from a consortium of magazine and newspaper publishers) are expected to be announced early next week. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times: News Corp., Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst, and Time Inc. are all investing in the “iTunes for print” company. The new venture doesn’t have a name yet, but, in theory, will sell content from magazines and newspapers from a single website while leaving the hardware (or reading devices) to others. The alliance would develop standards for magazine viewing on mobile phones, e-book readers, and other platforms. Time Inc. vet John Squires will be the managing director while the company looks for a CEO. Read the New York Times story here or The Guardian’s story here.
The American Society of Magazine Editors announced this month that the 2010 National Magazine Awards will expand to include 12 categories for digital media. These new awards—the National Magazine Awards for Digital Media—will be presented at a midday event in March. The Call for Entries for the 2010 National Magazine will be posted online on Tuesday, November 2, 2009. ASME says it decided to expand the National Magazine Awards “for the simple reason that the awards no longer reflected what magazines are—and perhaps more importantly, will be.”
The new National Magazine Awards for Digital Media include the following categories: General Excellence, Digital Media; Mobile Media; Design, Digital Media; Photography, Digital Media; News Reporting; Blogging; Regular Department or Section; Multimedia Feature or Package; Interactive Tool; Podcasting; Video; and Community. With the addition of the new awards, the National Magazine Awards now includes 35 categories: 14 print-only categories (among them, 6 General Excellence categories); 8 categories in which pieces that originally appeared either in print or online are eligible; and 12 digital-only categories. Category 35 is a new category: Magazine of the Year.
Coming this month to an iPhone near you: the December issue of your GQ magazine. Conde Nast has developed the technology to view the December issue’s content on Apple’s iPhone through a $2.99 app. This is the first time a major consumer magazine has made an entire issue available on a custom-built reader on an Apple app, breaking away from Amazon’s Kindle app. In the reader, GQ can be read in vertical or horizontal modes, and users can tap through pages and ads. It will also include video, audio, and links to external websites. The app comes out mid-November. See the full FOLIO story here.
On the heels of Popular Science’s animated cover, InStyle’s 3-D Holiday Shopping Guide, and Entertainment Weekly’s in-book videos, Esquire is pulling out all the stops and making its entire December issue the Augmented Reality Issue. It’s the first time a magazine has used this technology (you hold up the magazine page to a webcam, triggering video segments on your screen) within a substantial amount of its editorial content. A fashion spread shows the model removing and adding clothes, and the weather turns from rainy to sunny. An actress tells a joke on your screen. Even the cover has Robert Downey Jr. sitting on a giant QR box with the cover line: “WTF?! A Living, Breathing, Moving, Talking Magazine?” The issue hits newsstands mid November. But you can sign up here to receive one on Nov. 9. Read the Wall Street Journal story here.
We can never resist a magazine or two when standing in the checkout line at Target. Now the retail chain is hoping to spawn similar magazine purchases online through a new digital magazine newsstand it has created in partnership with digital content provider Zinio. Target.com shoppers can order digital subscriptions, single copies, and archived copies of hundreds of magazines on the new co-branded, private-label newsstand site target.zinio.com. The digital copies can be read on the computer, or on e-readers or mobile phones.
But Target isn’t the only one venturing into digital newsstand technology. Time Inc. is said to be in talks with other publishers, such as Conde Nast and Hearst, on the creation of a digital newsstand that could become the “Hulu for glossies,” where magazine-like publications are delivered via e-readers. Time Inc.’s John Squires made the announcement at the Oct. 14 Magazine Innovation Summit. More details about the new venture, including a possible third-party that would act as the storefront, should be announced next month, with a launch date of 2010.
Meanwhile, Hearst is launching a service and online store in 2010 that will deliver newspapers and magazines from a variety of publishers on a variety of electronic devices. Called 
The American Society of Magazine Editors announced this month that the 2010 National Magazine Awards will expand to include 12 categories for digital media. These new awards—the National Magazine Awards for Digital Media—will be presented at a midday event in March. The Call for Entries for the 2010 National Magazine will be posted online on Tuesday, November 2, 2009. ASME says it decided to expand the National Magazine Awards “for the simple reason that the awards no longer reflected what magazines are—and perhaps more importantly, will be.”
Coming this month to an iPhone near you: the December issue of your GQ magazine. Conde Nast has developed the technology to view the December issue’s content on Apple’s iPhone through a $2.99 app. This is the first time a major consumer magazine has made an entire issue available on a custom-built reader on an Apple app, breaking away from Amazon’s Kindle app. In the reader, GQ can be read in vertical or horizontal modes, and users can tap through pages and ads. It will also include video, audio, and links to external websites. The app comes out mid-November. 
On the heels of 
We can never resist a magazine or two when standing in the checkout line at Target. Now the retail chain is hoping to spawn similar magazine purchases online through a new digital magazine newsstand it has created in partnership with digital content provider Zinio. Target.com shoppers can order digital subscriptions, single copies, and archived copies of hundreds of magazines on the new co-branded, private-label newsstand site 
