Tag Archives: cosmo

NatMags Cosmo site relaunch – decides against VideoJug

Mark Sweney of MediaGuardian reports that Cosmo is to soft launch a new website with all the web 2.0 bells and whistles you’d expect from a leading magazine publisher.

Interesting comment by Duncan Edwards, CEO of NatMags, who said they’d looked at third party content like VideoJug but decided to build its own capability in this area.

Why not use VideoJug? The cost? Because it’s easier / cheaper to replicate in-house?

That said, video it’s easy enough to produce. Set up a small video team to manage and teach video production, roll it across other content rich websites and you’re in business. Hell, they may even be selling it to third parties themselves soon enough…

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Can MySpace really halt the decline of teen print mags?

I wouldn’t normally admit to reading the Independent, but I was so moved by an article I read over someone’s shoulder, I just had to share.

Teen users are ditching print mags in favour of websites. The editor of CosmoGIRL thinks she’s come up with a solution to stem the tide: create a CosmoGIRL profile on MySpace, in addition to the magazine’s own site. That way, users will be able to engage with the magazine.

The interviewer, encouragingly, questions whether it’s sensible to send the user to another platform. It seems to be a risk worth taking apparently.

No, I’m sorry – although this may provide a temporary reprieve, print readers will still eventually decline. The editor, Celia Duncan, suggests that users are gagging to be one of the few user comments listed on the magazine’s page. Ok – now what? It doesn’t generate any revenue. At best, this site will provide traffic for cosmogirl.co.uk – but that’s it surely? Will this really save the print mag?

A foot note: in researching this post I initially input www.myspace.com/cosmogirl. Interesting to see how much more edgy / authentic this post compares to the official CosmoGIRL profile. This is a prime example of how a commercially generated space needs to be pitch perfect. It’s so easy to get it wrong.

Read the full Independent.co.uk article:

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