This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next and last blog of 2016 is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 19.
We are all getting in a festive mood just about now: with the shopping list still lying nearby, reminding us that we need to do our Santa part quickly, and with various media magazines coming out with their expert predictions for 2017, it's time to take a break.
We at TheMarioBlog and Garcia Media are doing just that, although we plan to do some work during the Christmas break. Indeed, we are hard at work on rebranding Garcia Media, complete with new logo, and a brand new website design that adapts to the needs of our audience: simplicity, elegance and directness will prevail. Be on the lookout for the new Garcia Media rebranding!
While waiting for the new Garcia Media website to make its debut, these three items also give us a sense of hope and optimism:
The Washington Post: profitable and growing!
Not to bury the lede, but thanks to the incredible work of the entire team, The Washington Post will finish this year as a profitable and growing company.
In addition to reinforcing our belief that there is a viable business model in quality journalism, this will provide additional funding for several new initiatives that build upon the successes of this year.
The luxury of print
Paste magazine to start its print edition again:
There's been an awful lot written lately, some of if by us, about how luxury print products are the place to be if you happen to be in publishing. In the US, Paste magazine, which closed its original magazine six years ago, is relaunching its print product as a quarterly publication. It's currently running an Indiegogo campaign for the relaunch, but co-founder and editor-in-chief Josh Jackson told TMB that the quarterly magazine is coming back regardless of how the campaign goes:
"When we went out of print there were very obvious reasons that it didn't work, and a lot of it had to do with the economy and the reliance on advertising and in the magazine industry and our model was an expensive subscription and advertising would cover the gap and when it didn't we were an independent company and couldn't really bear the brunt of that.
"The idea to go back into print and make it a more luxurious, less frequent product that would come four times a year and would feel like a special delivery, that model, I've thought for a long time would be a model our core audience would dig and would want to get behind."
Bloomberg: apps are the new magazines
The new Bloomberg magazines are apps:
Starting with its redesigned flagship mobile app, Bloomberg plans to launch several new apps in the coming year with a focus on delivering personalized content to users in a more seamless and controllable fashion than what’s currently available on the mobile web and inside social platforms.
“Apps are the new magazines and newspapers,” said Scott Havens, global head of digital for Bloomberg Media. “I know if I have brand affinity [for a publisher], it’s because I get what I need and I find it a useful part of my daily media diet — that’s the underlying philosophy for the app.”