Blog turned magazine?

For years, pundits and readers alike have been saying, “the magazine industry is doomed.” I’ve heartily agreed with them, seeing as how I’ve spent my time blogging and the like. Instead of turning over and simply dying, could magazines turn it around by making the magazine supplement a website, instead of the website supplementing the magazine?

The magazine to internet process is tried and true. Magazines like Newsweek, Time or even tech bellwether Wired simply re-purposed the print mag into an online form, often delayed from the original print publication. The natural response of a web-savvy crowd? “Why would we want to read what we’ve already read a month later?”

What if, instead, the often untimely magazine became the repository for the website? I’m not saying simply repurpose blog posts for print, but rather author original in-depth pieces from original blog content.

Say, for instance, a writer is interviewing three or four “experts” about HD-DVD vs BluRay saga. One of them is particularly noteworthy, maybe works at a market research firm and can talk on behalf of the company. If that person says something interesting, instead of holding on to the quote till the whole story is written, the writer excerpts the interview on a blog with some explanation that it’s being worked up for a future blowout story on BluRay’s big victory. The site then might get viral traffic and original content, with an expectation that the full story is yet to be explained. Then, the writer rinses and repeats the process, talking to execs, etc, till finally one day the full story is written.

Finally, after the print mag goes to press, the writer sculpts a blog post that sums up the article, gives links to the background interviews and the post goes live when the magazine hits newsstands. The site also offers an online version of the magazine (PDF and kindle, flavors, etc.) that includes the print ads.

I think you could sell the site at a certain CPM and then the PDF would become a calculated value-add to the print publication’s CPM.

Granted, I realize this idea needs to be baked a little better before it could be implemented, and there are still some user expectations that aren’t met (ie, WHAT?! I have to download a PDF?!) but it seems like a step toward the right direction. Granted, some magazine publisher would have to really take a chance and share revs on the PDF and print versions (or some online publisher needs to add magazine infrastructure, which seems less likely,) but to me it seems worth a shot, especially if the publisher is in the “uh oh, our business is changing” camp.

I’d love to hear some feedback, if you’ve got any. Leave a comment or email contact[at]randallcbennett(dot)com.

(IMG courtesy Flickr User CarbonNYC, although I have a similar, less well photographed, pic.)