Stories from Cyberspace
Three
intrepid magazine editors—with varying degrees of online
know-how—describe their adventures going live on the Internet.
By Karen A. Auguston
Mini-AIR (Annals of Improbable Research)
Contact: Marc
Abrahams
Print magazine: Annals of Improbable Research
Launch date: January 1995
To receive mini-AIR by e-mail: send an e-mail message containing
only the words "SUBSCRIBE MINI-AIR" followed by your
name to: LISTPROC@AIR.HARVARD.EDU
EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this story was originally printed,
AIR has established an online version called HotAIR. URL:
http://www.improb.com.
Just as editor Marc Abrahams prepared to send out the first issue
of his online magazine mini-AIR last December, he got an urgent
call from the information systems department at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, which was planning to distribute the
publication over the Internet.
"In a panicky voice, this guy told me not to release mini-AIR
because 10,000 people had signed up for it," recalls Abrahams.
"He feared we would essentially shut down all of MIT's computer
operations and possibly even slow down communications along the
entire East Coast."
Abrahams first conceived of the idea of an online "mini
magazine" as a way to reach potential subscribers for his
new print magazine, Annals of Improbable Research (AIR),
after its predecessor, the Journal of Irreproducible Results,
was folded by the publisher.
Often referred to as the Mad magazine of the science world,
AIR's online version has been successful beyond even the wildest
expectations. Abrahams estimates that several hundred thousand
people currently receive mini-AIR via e-mail, which puts it up
there with David Letterman's Top Ten List.
| The Taxonomy of Barney |
 |
| Figure 1. Composite
image of Barney showing external morphology and skeletal structure.
|
Mini-AIR consists of an engaging compilation of snippets and
teasers for the print product and a subscription form to order
the magazine. An amusing poster (which the reader can print out
and hang up) is also included. Abrahams explains that the poster
is a hook that gets people addicted so they keep coming back for
more. A recent, popular poster offering was a composite image
of Barney illustrating the dinosaur's external morphology and
skeletal structure (shown at right).
Abrahams attributes the magazine's success to two things: keeping
it simple and giving people the kind of compelling editorial that
keeps them coming back for more. "People only come and look
for two reasons: if it's something they want or if it's something
they need," says Abrahams.
While acknowledging that the Web is getting all the attention
right now, Abrahams intentionally avoided going that route with
mini-AIR. "For certain magazines, the Web is a perfect place
to be," says Abrahams. "But there is also a lot of hype
out there. Almost everything on the Net today is an experiment,
and almost no one is making money.
"And if no one knows you're there, no one is going to come
looking for you," he says. "A lot of people have some
really great stuff out there, but if nobody knows about it, it's
worthless." Abrahams built awareness of mini-AIR through
an intensive public relations campaign, including such activities
as sponsorship of the annual Ig Nobel Awards Ceremony for dubious
achievements in science.
By setting up an e-mail distribution system, Abrahams believes
that he has hit upon something that's simpler, cheaper, and a
lot more powerful than a home page on the Web for the moment.
"We're not counting on making money yet," says Abrahams.
"We're just gingerly feeling our way along here until we
have enough information to justify doing something more elaborate.
"Every magazine today thinks it has to be on the Web, but
efforts to set up a home page can chew up staff time and money
at an alarming rate with little return for those efforts,"
says Abrahams.
"The key is to figure out what you want to accomplish -
not how," he says. "Don't jump on the Net right away.
Think first, what can you do on the Net that you can't do just
as well in print?" •
Plug-in Datamation
Contact: Bill Semich, executive editor, software
Print magazine: Datamation
Publisher: Cahners Publishing Co.
Launch date: January 1995
URL: http://www.datamation.com
"Going online may seem like a simple extension of producing
a print publication, but it is definitely not something that you
can do with only part-time people - not if you want to do it right,"
stresses Datamation's Bill Semich, executive editor, software,
"and I definitely wouldn't recommend trying to do it on your
own the first time."
Publishing an electronic magazine is a recent venture for Datamation's
editorial staff, which first started talking about the Web as
a concept last summer. Six months later, they began creating a
Web site for Plug-In Datamation, a stylish compilation of both
original editorial material and articles published in Datamation.
Although the people on the magazine's editorial staff are no
neophytes when it comes to computers, they elected to contract
with BB&N, a Cambridge, Mass.-based network services provider,
for technical assistance in developing a Web site.
"If your staff is just setting up a Web page for the first
time, I would definitely suggest partnering with someone who knows
the technology and can help guide you through the process,"
says Semich.
After finding a partner to provide hardware and technical support,
the staff found itself spending most of its time learning how
to convert over from a traditional production process for printed
pages to a production process for an online magazine. "That
may sound like it's trivial, but believe me, it's a major effort,"
emphasizes Semich.
One of the fundamental difficulties, says Semich, is that magazine
people enter into a project like this with some fairly strong
preconceived notions about page layout and design. "But the
Web is a totally different nagivational tool," he points
out. "Instead of thinking about using a sidebar to get a
reader into a story, we had to start asking questions like, 'How
does this hypertext link keep the reader focused?' "
Designers also had to give careful thought to the conversion
process. "Suppose you decide, well I want my graphics to
look really hot and so you create all 24-bit color pages,"
says Semich. "Unfortunately, someone's home computer may
only have a 4-bit color display, so you're sending him a ton of
information that his display won't use anyway. Early on, we did
an image of Barney, and the poor guy was grey on a 16-color VGA
monitor!"
Complex images also introduce a long delay in the time that it
will take to generate this information on-screen, says Semich.
This counteracts the idea of the instant gratification associated
with setting up a hypertext link in the first place.
But what to do about it? Semich confesses that there's a bit
of black art involved in degrading a 24-bit image into something
suited to conventional desktop video technology. It takes more
than a few hours of work, he says, to strike a balance between
the desires of your art director and the capabilities of your
audience to access that information.
Plug-In Datamation has been a learning experience on the advertising
side as well. Advertisers sponsored a special, online trade show
the magazine produced earlier this year, but otherwise Plug-In
Datamation is not supported by advertising. The eventual goal
is to charge companies for "hot links" - connections
that put readers directly in touch with the advertiser's computer
when they click somewhere on an ad.
Semich believes that advertisers will benefit by having readers
register when they log into the system. "We can track not
only how many hits a particular advertisement generates, but also
provide that advertiser a significant level of detail on who is
reading its ads.
"People don't really think about it," says Semich,
"but the ability to track everybody who comes and goes in
the system is a pretty powerful tool." •
Laser Focus World Home Page
Contact: Jeff Bairstow, editorial director
Print magazine: Laser Focus World
Publisher: PennWell Publishing Co.
Launch date: January 1995
URL: http://www.lfw.com
Results from a simple reader survey in the magazine last summer
were enough to get Laser Focus World started on developing
a home page for the Web, says Jeff Bairstow, editorial director.
"We wanted to know how many of our readers might be capable
of accessing information electronically, so we ran a blurb in
the print magazine telling them that if they would forward us
their e-mail address, we would send them something," recalls
Bairstow. "We didn't even say what it was we'd be sending,
and 400 readers responded. That's when we knew we might be on
to something!"
Some of the survey respondents suggesting going on the Web. "Our
first thought was, 'What is the Web?' which gives you a pretty
good idea of what kind of experience we had with online publishing,"
says Bairstow.
Like Plug-In Datamation, Laser Focus World contracted
with BB&N to provide technical support and network services.
Laser Focus World Home Page debuted on the Web in January, and
to date the magazine has published over 200 pages of news as well
as condensed versions of articles appearing in the print magazine.
A dedicated staff person develops and adds about two to three
pages of new information to the system per week.
Bairstow believes that it's this regularly updated information
that keeps people coming back. "People like to see news,"
he says. "The items are designed to be short and readable
- usually not more than one Web page, because most people are
not willing to scroll through a long document."
If the number of people accessing the system is any indication,
the concept has been well-received. But its growing popularity
has also been a kind of double-edged sword for the magazine.
"On a typical day, about 1,500 people access the home page,"
says Bairstow. "At times the system becomes overloaded and
there is a delay, which is very frustrating for a reader who wants
that information immediately."
Although readers are clearly getting some benefit, Bairstow is
concerned about where the revenue will come from to continue to
finance the venture. Currently, the magazine pays about $800 per
month for the network service and would like to at least cover
those costs through advertising revenue. "We've done some
experimenting with connections to our advertisers, but at the
moment we're not charging anything," says Bairstow.
Bairstow explains that many of the magazine's advertisers are
not yet sophisticated enough to provide materials for an electronic
version of a magazine. "Many of the people we work with don't
even have e-mail capabilities yet," says Bairstow. "However,
figuring out how to extract money from advertisers is something
we are definitely going to be looking into in the future."
•
From the May/June 1995 issue of the ASBPE National
Newshound
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