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May 22, 2006
Magazine Death Pool
"Book your reservations on the River Styx now! Place your bets on what The Grim Reaper believes will be one of the richer passengers to cross over a few years from now. I have to admit that I am having one of my boatsmiths constructing a special gold-plated monogrammed vessel for the future Conde Nast business title." The principal over at the Magazine Death Pool has many things to say about the upcoming "Vanity Fair of business," none of them favorable.
"The Reaper knows there'll be a BIG party when it launches. And the Reaper knows that the cover will be plastered in the NY Post and other places. They will be diving headfirst into a shaky category that is experiencing its bumps -- even Forbes has quietly put itself up for an investor's stake.
"The Reaper knows that there'll be a big ad campaign to launch it and there'll be millions spent to promote the first two issues. The Reaper knows there'll be plenty of advertising in the first two or three issues from marketers who just want to ride the initial buzz wagon.
..."The Reaper knows that after the bloom is off the rose, people are going to wonder if another flashy business magazine is necessary. Will their target readers actually buy it from the newsstand once it hits issue three or four... or will the love affair die, like it did with Cargo?"
Magazine Death Pool is a good reminder that technology companies aren't the only ventures that go belly up with alarming frequency. My injured arms prevented me from clicking through the whole damn photo gallery but I didn't see mention of the last two mags I wrote for, Absolute New York (which won a photo award recently) and CMO, which went belly up within a few months of each other. (The editors at both magazines were a joy to work for and I miss them all. Sniff. CMO does live on as a website and who knows, it may return.) Other late, lamented mags were there, including FamilyPC, Yahoo Internet Life, the Industry Standard and Upside.
And now I understand why the bookstores I visited in New York last month were out of Budget Living. Oops!
Posted by Deborah Branscum at May 22, 2006 07:10 PM