Issues in Scholarly Communication is a newsletter produced by Paula Kaufman, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries, for the Illinois community. Entries from 2001-2005 newsletter are available.
« Curling Up With a Good E-Book | Main | Radical Change for Tenure »
When babycenter.com was born in 1997, the parenting e-zine reveled in the cost savings to be found in cyberspace. No postage rates or paper bills to worry about. Ink? So yesterday. So it comes as quite a surprise that eight years later, at a time when the magazine industry is falling over itself to boost its presence online, that BabyCenter has launched a version of its popular Web site on -- gasp -- paper. As wired as the world is today, there seems to be relief in turning pages the old way. BabyCenter researchers visiting readers' houses last year saw shelves full of books on parenting. "Then we'd notice the stack of parenting magazines in the living room," says BabyCenter President Mari J. Baker. In September the e-zine launched a paper magazine with stories on eating habits during pregnancy and chic maternity clothes. Sticking exclusively to online, says Baker, would leave too many ad dollars on the table.Traditional magazines from Time to Playboy years ago started cyberspace versions to keep up with the demand for round-the-clock news updates and online communities. Now the tables have turned. Upstart Internet publishers, helped by low costs that go with signing up their online members, are venturing into the print world they once viewed as an albatross of paper and distribution expenses. Besides BabyCenter, the new Web-to-print ventures include a magazine devoted to Google, WebMD the Magazine, spun off from Web site WebMDHealth Corp., and AlwaysOn, a print version of the tech Web site. Consumers bounce on and off the Web, so cyberpublishers must "surround the readers and be wherever they are," says independent consultant Gerry L. Ginsburg. Even with online subscribers to leverage, there's no guarantee, of course, that these new entries will stick. Most print magazines don't survive for more than a few years. The few online brands that have tried print editions shuttered them. Ziff-Davis () began publishing Yahoo! Internet Life in 1996 but pulled the plug six years later, after the dot-com bubble burst. Expedia Travels met the same fate in 2001. There's more art than science in figuring out which brands can transfer to print. While Yahoo offered topics that were perhaps too general -- ranging from online shopping to privacy -- Sandhills Publishing Co. in Lincoln, Neb., launched quarterly Google () with articles focused on mining the Web portal for fun and profit. More at Business Week Online 1/9/06 http://tinyurl.com/8eehe
Posted by P. Kaufman at January 3, 2006 7:57 AM
University LibraryFor comments on this page contact: Kaite Newman
