At the beginning of last year, in what was totally not a ploy for free publicity, Playboy magazine decided to get rid of nude photos. The magazine hoped to expand its sales by publishing beautiful ladies in lingerie or bikinis. Either the scheme didn’t work as planned, or the magazine just missed the beautiful naked ladies it had for its first 62 years: As of this month’s issue, nudes are back. [More]
magazines
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
By 12.30.16
Here are four of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. [More]
Penthouse Keeping Magazine, Citing The “Gravitas” Of The Printed Page
By 1.20.16
Don’t put down that pen just yet, Penthouse readers: your letters to the magazine could still end up in an issue on the newsstand in the near future. Penthouse’s editors say the magazine won’t be going online-only… at least not at the moment. [More]
Playboy Learns Internet Exists, Getting Rid Of Nude Photos
By 10.13.15
Playboy magazine, for all its fame as a purveyor of airbrushed breasts and well-lit derrieres, has never really had much in the way of nudity compared to competitors. Now that just about any innocent search on the Internet will eventually bring up more bared flesh than a full issue of Playboy, the magazine has decided it’s about time to put some clothes on. [More]
Watch Out For Fake Magazine Renewal Invoices
By 3.24.15
When you subscribe to a magazine and a subscription renewal form arrives in the mail, you pay the invoice and keep the magazines coming, right? No, not quite: at least, not if your address and subscription information have fallen into the hands of a company called Subscription Billing Service, which customers say collects money without bothering to mention that they have no relationship to the magazine publisher. [More]
Would You Pay 20¢ To Read One Wall Street Journal Article?
By 3.13.15
As more news consumers have started to migrate online instead of getting their news in dead-tree form, this has caused problems for the entire business model of publishing. It raises an interesting question, though: what if there were a news equivalent of buying the one song you like from a new album for 99¢ or less? That option may be coming soon to our national newspapers like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. [More]
US Postal Service Ships Cover, Forgets My Magazine
By 6.3.13
Thom’s copy of The Economist got separated from its cover. That’s very sad. We have to give the Post Office an A+ for effort, though: they made sure he received evidence that there was ann Economist that week. They delivered the least useful part of the magazine, because that’s the part that had his address printed on it. [More]
Redbook Ticks Off Internet After Copying Blogger’s Idea
By 12.31.12
Here’s the thing about the Internet: It can facilitate the spreading of ideas and information at an astounding rate, but this dissemination can come at the expense of that materials’ source. So at what point does a cool notion go from being the brainchild of an individual to becoming something owned by the faceless hive mind? [More]
Newsweek To Stop Printing Magazines And Be Reborn As Digital-Only Newsweek Global
By 10.18.12
It’s a tough time out there for weekly magazines as they try to compete with the 24-hour news cycle and the wealth of content available for free online. Thus, the folks at Newsweek will soon be switching to a digital-only, paid subscription service. [More]
Another Video Game Magazine Dies An Agonizing Death
By 12.1.11
Kids who tagged along with their parents on grocery store trips in the early 1990s just to spend the duration in the magazine aisle paging through GamePro magazine will have to kiss another piece of their childhoods goodbye. After abandoning the monthly format for a quarterly model this year, the magazine has ceased production entirely. Also, the website will shut down by Dec. 6. [More]
AMA Attacks Photoshopping For Promoting Anorexia
By 6.28.11
Photoshopping is used in ads and on magazine covers to make models more “beautiful,” which often means “skinnier.” The American Medical Association says the practice needs to get reined in. “Exposure to media-propagated images of unrealistic body images” has been linked to “eating disorders and other child and adolescent health problems,” the group said in a press release. The group wants advertisers to adopt policies that would curtail altering photographs that lead to “models with body types only attainable with the help of photo editing software.” [More]
Time, Sports Illustrated & Fortune Offer Free iPad Access For New Subscribers
By 5.2.11
Most magazines are now available in digital formats, but very few offer simultaneous print and digital subscriptions for one price. Now a few of Time Inc.’s bigger print products have made a deal with Apple that would give some subscribers access to the iPad version of Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune magazines for no extra cost. [More]
Wired Invites You To Re-subscribe Before Sending Any Magazines
By 4.5.11
Aggressive subscription renewals are nothing new in the dying field of magazines. But reader Ben was a little surprised when the first thing he received as a new subscriber to Wired wasn’t a welcome letter or a magazine. It was a solicitation to re-up for another year. [More]
Profiles In Niche Marketing: "Short Hair Magazine"
By 2.3.11
I spotted this in the magazine rack at Walgreens last night. There is an entire magazine devoted just to short hair. It’s called Short Hair, and it turns out it’s been around for many years. While it sounds silly, one of it’s main selling points is that if you see a cut in there you like you can buy the glossy and show it to your stylist. Still, this is the apotheosis of niche marketing. I’m thinking of picking up a subscription but with my budget tight I’ll need to either drop Mason Jar Monthly, or Babe In The Hoods, a periodical devoted to pictures of attractive people wearing hooded sweatshirts. [More]
Retailers Do Not Want To Sell Magazines, Porn, Porn Mags
By 1.20.11
Add this to the woes facing the magazine industry: retailers are cutting back on the space they allocate to print products, and many are outright banning titles that show a little skin. Over the last three years, 18,000 North American retailers stopped carrying magazines, an 11.3% decline. [More]
Save Money On Magazine Subscriptions By Complaining About N00bs
By 12.30.10
Are you annoyed at the great introductory prices new subscribers to a magazine get, while old-timers’ subscription prices climb higher? Yeah, it’s the nature of subscriptions, but Gabe found a simple way around it: he called up the magazine and complained about the discrepancy. [More]
Atlantic Is Profitable, Thanks To Culture Shift And Checks
By 12.13.10
Defying the notion that the magazine business is careening at the edge of a digital abyss, the venerable Atlantic is about to turn its first profit in over ten years. The magazine cites a cultural shift that had employees think of themselves as “a venture-capital-backed start-up in Silicon Valley whose mission was to attack and disrupt The Atlantic.” [More]
Magazine That Stole Writer's Story Likely Shutting Down; Blames Writer
By 11.17.10
Some people don’t know when to leave bad enough alone. Earlier this month, we brought you the story of a freelance writer who not only found out that a small cooking magazine had lifted her entire story without permission or payment, but then insulted the author saying she should have paid them for the tiny bit of editing they did on her text before printing it. Now the editor at the magazine says it’s likely curtains for the publication — and you’ll never guess who she’s blaming. [More]
