As a kid I never really knew the difference between Rupert Murdoch and Howling Mad Murdoch from the A-Team.

I’m still having trouble…

This is a pretty long video at 37 minutes but well worth a view, the old boy covers everything from paid internet content, his evolvement with British papers, the BBC and his retirement.

What amazes me and also re-assures me is that the guy seems to have little idea as to what year we live in. His age is showing a lack of understanding about the internet and it’s users.

Not too say he didn’t have some good points but generally I think he’s a bit lost. A good business man no doubt. A pioneer, no longer. Decide for yourself.

Video was spotted on the rather good Marketing Magazin

Recently I became an advocate of Adobe products. I’ve kinda always been one really but now it’s official and caught on camera.

After talking to Adobe on more than one occasion concerning Creative Suite 5 and the further integration of InDesign and Flash, Adobe decided they’d come and make a little video case study on iGizmo and our working practices at Dennis Publishing.

So if you’re interested in how we do things on iGizmo and iMotor, head over and have a butchers…

Adobe eMag solutions

Facebook:

Global audience:
305,577,640

Largest users:
1. United States 90,579,320
2. United Kingdom 21,537,820
5. Canada 13,022,640
8. Australia 7,101,920

Average user has 130 friends on the site

More than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day

More than 14 million videos uploaded each month

More than 2 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week

More than 45 million active user groups exist on the site

Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications

More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users

More than 15,000 websites, devices and applications have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008

Twitter:

Daily page views 390 million

Daily visitors 58 million

13th largest website on the internet

YouTube:

4.4 billion daily page views

300 million daily visitors

4th largest site

Stumbleupon:

28 miilion daily page views

4.7 million daily visitors

Digg:

57 million page views per day

10 millions daily visitors

That’s a pretty thin selection of stats really but gives you an idea of just how massive these sites have become. The smallest stat there is 4.7 million daily users. That’s an incredible number for anything, anywhere. Nearly 5 million people all focusing on one thing.

Magazines have started to take notice of these sites and are slowly and clumsily climbing on board. They pump RSS feeds into Twitter, they stick any old shite onto YouTube and sites like Digg or Stumbleupon are left to next year. Maybe.

The number of people sharing website url’s is staggering, in email and web its incalculable. The amount of people who send videos recommendations and pictures goes into billions. Billions no less.

Lets not loose site of how large these numbers are.

For an interactive magazine to launch, thrive and survive these sites (and many more) need to be taken advantage of. They can all be used to drive people to your magazine and enforce your brand. And in nearly all cases they are free.

Not only can they drive people to your mag, giving you high open rates which can subsequently develop more revenue. But they can also provide content, news, word of mouth, awesome SEO and also help develop a sense of community among your readership – something magazines used to have back in the day, but not anymore.

I would not launch an eMag without a sound and substantial social network plan in place, it’s just crazy. If you don’t have time then find someone that does, get a work experience kid or an intern. Better yet get a 16 year old kid with a big mouth. Those little douchebags know these sites inside out (you’re getting old don’t forget).

Use YouTube and video upload sites to post half a video with a link and a web url at the beginning and end, and the promise of seeing the whole vid inside the mag, and without the obligatory watermark.

Use Twitter to drive people to specific pages “Did you miss our exclusive Palm Pre review? url…)

If you’re out on a shoot or a press even Tweet whilst you go, use TwitPic to post teasers. If it fits your style, you can also post videos straight to YouTube.

Use Twitter to promote feedback. Post polls or questions, set challenges to get people chatting about you

Make sure your eMags have Digg and Stumbleupon icons easily accessible (like eDition offers within it browser).

Use podcasts and video casts if you have time. Make them entertaining and you’ll stand a good chance of getting a good download rate. Total Film’s videocast has done great guns recently, an excellent bit promotion whilst really upholding editorial principles and personality.

Forums are an excellent way to promote your magazines. iMotor has a great thing going by featuring simple Flash based games within a magazine page. The game relates to a recent motoring news topic and the gets posted on a few forums, and before you know it, it’s gone around like wild fire.

Facebook has become mandatory in 100 countries. Well not quite but it’s an immense resource. A friend of mine recently started a fan page for the Lions Rugby Tour, within weeks he had 10,000 “fans” all of whom are contactable via mail. All of whom can also see your updates and posted links… directing to your magazine.

Use social networks as much as you can. Use it to promote your products but also to create a brand, to get across your editorial opinions and personality  to create a following.

In the absense of Flash on the iPhone social networks are a great tool to keep your readers in the loop and entice them into visiting when they find something capable of Flash (ie, everything else!).

It’s all about open rates and getting subscribers to your ever important email list.

Don’t underestimate the power of social networking. Or the Force, that’s pretty powerful as well.

If you’re thinking of joining the British Army what better way to wet your appetite than a nice interactive magazine…

Designed by Haymarket, Flash work by the annoyingly good Fresh Media Group, its a slick little number. A really good magazine and well worth checking out if like guns and helicopters – and let’s face it who doesn’t?

Click here for Camouflage

Today sees the launch of Redwood Publishing’s eZine, ZoomZoom. Originally a print mag for Mazda it has now swiftly adopted the crown of best online eZine. It’s slickly designed, full of attitude, has some impeccable Flash work (you can tell they’ve spent ages on the timing of animations) and does a great job of representing the Mazda brand.
Most interestingly it has been published on the eDition platform. As far as I am aware this could be the first major English language launch for eDition. Having said that since the mag is for a Canadian audience it is available in both English and French. Nicely showcasing eDitons multi language interface.
It’s good to see someone giving eDition the exposure they warrant and it’s good to see Redwood are pushing the boundaries of eZines.

Check it out for yourself, if only all eZines could be this well made (yeah I’m talking to you GQ):

Click here

The USA’s fourth largest retailer, Sears, has chosen the Ceros to launch its first online-only interactive catalog. A really nice display of rich content, Cradle & All provides shoppers with the tools to browse, examine, review and purchase products – all without ever having to leave the catalog. This is the first time Ceros have included a shopping basket so will be interesting to see how popular that is to readers.
The design of the mag is really nice and simple, I’m particularly liking the top menu bar and the “table of contents” pop up. Quite a nice way around the Ceros contents panel that most people seem to miss.
Overall a really great example of what eZines can do for your company…

Click HERE for Sears eZine

Yet more eDition stuff. Kiosk-on.net is a great little resource for eMags. Most of these are European so don’t expect a lot of English language publications. It’s interesting to see what other people are doing with the platform, although other than CarZine, I don’t think a lot of them are making the most out of it.
Rumors of a major London publisher using eDition should hopefully mean we’ll see someone really making the most out of their excellent software.
Kiosk is also the most obvious addition to the online eMag portfolio – a news stand. Something Zinio got from the start but everyone else seemed to completely overlook.

Check out Kiosk

Another eDition story (shit you guys have been busy!).
eDition recently rolled out it’s pluggin allowing easy integration of a shopping basket throughout an issue. Incredibly appealing to advertisers and a must for any online catalogue or brochure.

For more info click ‘ere!

eDition have recently announced a new behavioral analytics tool. A visual “heat-map” of where visitors click and zoom on your digital publication. It’s not just an interesting way of looking at your traffic and their activities, but a very useful feedback on reader’s habits and could be a very valuable tool for designers.

eDition have also added video dwell time (measuring the time people actually watch videos for) and statistics of clicks and zooms concentration. Meaning you can now track which parts of each page are most popular for clicks and which part are mostly zoomed.

All great stuff and should mean we can cater more for the desires of the reader than ever before. Keep it coming…

Been a little slack of late, due to the fact I’ve been trying really hard to have one of those things I hear some people have… what are they called again? Ah yes, a life.

Quite a few new issues around so here goes…

Remme and Friends magazine, no idea what the fuck it’s about but the occasional nice bit in there.

iMotor has a nice cover for this issue, a little different for them

This months Virgin Electric, nice mag, crap broadband provider

Wired UK, with a nifty stop motion Lego article

Rubber Duck car magazine

Photo360, still going strong and doing some nice stuff with video

Tennis Head, simple but effective magazine

Morrisons. The supermarket takes on Waitrose with this Ceros mag

Number 5 magazine. Rio’s number two issue of the number 5 magazine. Some great stuff here

Egosit, on the eDition platform, nice mag, always worth keeping an eye on…