4 word on the street Between the ages of nine and 14, I used to run to the newsagent to see magazines arrive – I would wait for them to be unpacked so that I could get my copy. That just doesn’t happen anymore. People don’t wake up in the morning and think ‘I’m going to WHSmith’s to find an interesting curated magazine experience’. They go to WHSmith’s to get a bottle of water, and then think about buying a magazine. Even then the range isn’t very large, so the concept of browseability has become really hard to comprehend. The idea that the retailer’s going to do the discoverability for you… it’s not going to happen. But there is hope. I think we’re seeing a return to magazines fulfilling different functions in people’s lives. When magazines were at their peak, we were more interested in shifting lots of copies, but with the demise of the newsstand I think magazines need to find a new place in the world. In a sense, they’re going back to the way that people created journals: you published content that you were interested in, then you found communities of people who were also interested in that content, and then you connected the two. I think we’re moving to smaller, more engaged audiences, and finding economic models where you can work with a circulation of several thousand copies, as opposed to thinking about how to sell 40,000. Your direct relationship with your customer has to be interesting. I find it particularly fascinating how the role of the editor has been completely transformed: now they are more like curators of their community. Freelancer magazine My guilty pleasure is… ‘Noble Rot’, the wine magazine. It shouldn’t work at all, but it works brilliantly. Even the name is silly– it’s meaningless to a lot of people, but it refers to the process that takes place when sweet wine is made. It was created by a bunch of people who weren’t snobs, and who wanted to drink nice wine and turn it into a magazine – and now they’ve got two restaurants, a wine-importing business and a thriving community. When you hit the sweet spots like this, you can begin to build communities. HOW ARE MAGAZINES GOING TO EXIST IN THE 21ST CENTURY? BY KERIN O’CONNOR THE MAGIC AND THE GLORY
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODY1ODQy