Business and Blogging

New Magazine for Bloggers and Podcasters Set to Launch

by Des Walsh on April 14th, 2007

In an interesting twist on the new media vs old media conversation, a new print magazine on blogging and podcasting is about to launch.

There are also a “magazine-esque” digital version and a podcast version.

After some preliminary promotion, the new Blogger & Podcaster magazine is about to launch.

Teresa Valdez Klein at Blog Business Summit keeps her options open on the magazine’s prospects with A Magazine for Bloggers will be either a screaming success or a total dud.

And comments:

I think this is a bold move on the part of the publishers. A magazine for bloggers and podcasters is definitely an unfulfilled niche. The question is whether or not bloggers will pay attention to a news source that only updates once a month. Of course, the magazine also has its own blog.

In a brief mention of the new magazine, notable blogger Robert Scoble, whose picture graces the front cover of the soon to appear first edition, points to an informative interview by Joe Wickert, executive at Wiley book publishers, in which Blogger & Podcaster publisher Larry Genkin provides an overview of the magazine’s philosophy and approach:

JW: Critics would argue you’re going in the wrong direction and that most print products such as magazines and newspapers are trying to establish relevance online. Why do you feel swimming upstream like this is the right approach?

LG: Instead of “swimming upstream” we decided to make it easier to succeed by publishing the magazine in 3 formats: Print, Digital and Podcast. I believe we are the first in magazine history to do this (and another reason why my editorial team is about ready to string me up.) Each edition is different too. The digital edition uses cool software that gives our readers a magazine-esque feel with pages flipping on the screen and also allows us to embed audio and video into it to add to the experience beyond what you can get from the printed magazine. Then our podcast edition includes some of the actual interviews we conducted in writing our stories, to give subscribers even more detailed information from the industry experts we interviewed. In addition, we’ve also started a blog, written by our editors, so we can have a more regular and intimate dialogue with our readers.

In the same interview, Genkin says the target audience is “serious” bloggers and podcasters, but declares an intention to be careful not to make the content unintelligible to others.

I’m personally looking forward to the first edition - and subsequent ones. It will be interesting to see whether this is a magazine which I’ll be keen to recommend to others besides “serious” bloggers and podcasters.

Will it, for instance, be interesting enough for business people who just want to keep tabs on what’s happening in the blogosphere? Or will they be better suited just having feeds from a few key blogs in the business space, not excluding, of course, the blog of the magazine?

For the print version of the magazine, there is an annual subscription fee of $79 for US subscribers, $99 for the rest of us.

Subscriptions are free for the “digital print” and podcast versions. You can subscribe here.

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