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The Happy Holiday Edition...Issue #139
Shortly after I sold my first consulting practice and joined it with a publishing company, I was assigned my first corporate email address. This made my old AOL and Yahoo (Yeah, I go back that far) email addresses obsolete. All of my work product now originated from a brand new address that had my full name and tagged it to the shiny new (to me) company that I had joined.
And for a few months, I was so excited to check into my email and not find spam, trash, phishing links. My old email addresses were consigned to retail where they would continue to collect all of that spam, trash and phishing come ons. The excitement did not last for more than a few months. I carelessly signed up for a few newsletters and then, out of convenience, gave some random retailer my work email address because it was less embarrassing than AOL or Yahoo. Within weeks, my professional email inbox filled up with spam and other digital detritus of this century.
The same thing happened right after I parted ways with the publishing company nine years later. I went back out on my own. Found an ISP, bought my own domain, got my own professional email address…and wow! No spam. Until there was. But I kept at it because the ISP was easy to use, integrated easily into my MacOS and it worked.
Until it didn’t.
Over the past few years, my use of technology has gone from one of “this is seriously cool” to “Why are you doing this, exactly?” and I keep thinking about author Cory Doctorow’s post about the “Enshittification” of things. I thought about it again this morning when I went to check in and complete my least favorite task, cleaning out my email so I could focus on the actual emails that needed to be focused on and…
This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this. There was some sort of system wide upgrade a few months ago and, yeah…this is going well. It’s going about as well as those Teams meetings. Or as well as if you are on Safari and want to share a screen on a Google meeting. Or that moment when a client who exclusively uses Google Docs asks for an Excel sheet to be imported and…
Anyway.
I’ve said it before. I’m no Luddite. I don’t hate technology and I don’t necessarily think things were better in the old analog days. But at least in the old analog days, the technology, however limited, worked for us. Now we work for it.
It’s like one of my teachers once said, “I’m not mad. I’m disappointed.”
one__Boston Globe considers acquiring Boston Magazine from Metrocorp
In so many ways, this makes a ton of sense. At one time, the owners of city magazines were often the local newspaper. Over the past few decades, these magazines have been spun off, often to much larger regional publishing conglomerates. In this case, the current owners of the Boston Globe are actually one of the few profitable newspapers in a top ranked metro area.
Boston Magazine is owned by Metrocorp, a company that also owns Philadelphia Magazine. Boston was acquired by Metrocorp back in 1971.
two__Active Interest sells Marine titles to Firecrown
I confess that while I was aware of most of the titles that Firecrown operates, I was unaware that Firecrown was the parent company of all those magazines and websites. Firecrown bills itself as the “category king in the affluent enthusiast community…” and produces editorial content for sailing, aviation, railroads and modeling, space, and, because you have to get stuff from point A to point B, a website dedicated to supply chains.
The titles that the Chattanooga based Firecrown has acquired are in many cases, quite storied: Anglers Journal, Sail, Soundings, the cruise trawler magazine Passagemaker, plus several shows and trade journals.
three__Complex Magazine is back in print
The original Complex Magazine was founded back in the aughts as a fashion and youth lifestyle magazine. I remember being fascinated with it when I first bumped into it out in the wild. The publication always had great covers, exciting stories, and was an early adapter to digital media. They ended their print run back in 2016.
Current owners, NTWRK, a company that has celebrity investors like Jimmy Iovine has brought back the print edition. But like so many print relaunches over the past few years, the new Complex will be a quarterly. The circulation plan is pretty innovative and something I can totally get behind.
The new Complex has 168 pages, is double covered and spiral bound. It is sold as a single issue and there are no subscriptions. The title has limited distribution at some newsstands and stores in NYC and LA. You won’t find it in an airport or Walmart.
I absolutely love these new circulation strategies.
four___Meanwhile…Hearst lays off 200 people
This story has dueling points of view. How clever to announce the laying off of 200 people right before the holidays. How festive!
The official notification from Hearst said this:
“After a thorough review of our business, we’ve decided to reallocate resources to better support our goals and continue our focus on digital innovation while strengthening our best in class print products. We will scale back in areas that do not support our core strategy and will eliminate certain positions as we reimagine our team structures to drive long-term growth,”
The Writers Guild of America, which represents many of the employees targeted for the layoffs responded:
“Today, the consistently anti-union Hearst Magazines became the latest media company to enact needless, irresponsible, and cruel layoffs of editorial employees. Unsurprisingly, the small army of senior executives with make-work jobs and self-important titles, who add little to nothing to build Hearst’s brands, apparently made it through today relatively unscathed.
Will the salaries of the 200 laid off employees be re-allocated towards things that are currently working for this legacy publisher? Having experienced this sort of thing myself, the best I can say is, “Stay tuned…”
five__Denver’s 5280 Magazine has a new owner
National Magazine award winner 5280 was recently sold to Denver digital “media entrepreneur” Charity Huff. 5280 founder Daniel Brogan was not looking to sell the publication to Huff, but did after she approached him with an offer. His long term goal for the title was for it to remain locally owned and independent.
The print edition of the title claims a circulation of 55,000 and its digital presence is much larger. While there does not appear to be any plans for a major redesign in the near term, the new owner does plan more new events for the brand in the coming year.
Your moment of magazine zen…
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I am always open to a discussion about almost anything (Except for beef liver. It is gross and terrible and there is nothing more to say about it). If you want to start a chat with me about anything else, please click on the “Comment” box below and let’s get going!
Want to find me on the social sites?
Here’s my Linktree that will take you almost everywhere…
Don’t want to mess with all that? I get it. Here’s my Instagram.
I still own a suit and a few ties and every now and then I put them on and look something like a professional. Want to see that? Here’s my LinkedIn account.
BlueSky is pretty decent. I’ve been spending a little time there and it is a nice place to go if you’re looking for authors, journalists and other professionals who contribute to the reading world. You can find me here too.
That’s all we got for you this week. If you’re in-office, I hope that your holiday parties are going well and everyone’s behaving themselves. If you’re remote and you’re invited to join a virtual party, well, that seems…fun?
In the meantime, we’re having a party here and our AI Sign-Off Editor sent the following message out to the team. I am always impressed with its sense of corporate style…
Team,
As we navigate these challenging end-stage capitalistic times, it's imperative to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of this workforce. Your tireless commitment to operational excellence has undoubtedly contributed to our organization's impressive 4th quarter numbers.
To express our sincere gratitude for your unwavering dedication, we have reinstated the holiday party and it will be this coming Friday at 1PM. We trust that you will all be able to carve out time from your busy schedules to join us in the break room for pizza.
Please note that representatives from HR and the external consultants we paid for will be in attendance to ensure adherence to our organization's code of conduct. If you do not recall that code, ask Tom in accounting. Or, we kindly request that you familiarize yourselves with the relevant sections of the employee handbook (pages 45-49). We’re looking at you, Tom.
We look forward to your (mandatory) presence.
Sincerely, Your Overworked and Under-appreciated AI Editor