I receive a hard copy version of Inc. magazine every month, delivered to by my friendly mailman. He is been delivering our mail to us for years. The magazine is arriving at no cost, though I can not recall how or why this arrangement occurred, maybe it was from remnant sky miles on airline programs which remained unused, or for which I will never accrue enough miles for anything. I like Inc. journal and assume lots of the articles are interesting and thought upsetting, as soon as you’ll find them. Within the March 2010 issue, for instance, the reader first finds content on web page six with a brief profile accompanied by a big photograph, on web page 14 there is a letter from the editor and on page 17 there’s reader mail (hopefully email).
If we wish to be generous and don’t discuss with the inside cover as an actual page, the reader is provided with three pages of content in the first 17 pages of the journal, or a ratio of eighty two% advertisements to 18% content. Continuing on to web page 41, there’s roughly 14 pages of content out of 24 pages, which is a happier ratio of forty two% advertisements to fifty two% content. Total, in the first forty one pages I found 17 pages of content material which interprets to roughly 40% reader content material and 60% advertisement. Of course, if I had the patience, I would have analyzed all of the pages of the magazine. However a quick Google search led me to a web page called Magazine.org, which states that the typical (traditional) magazine is a couple of 50/50 ratio between ads and content. Total, I assure my down and dirty research to be somewhere between comparatively accurate to utterly anecdotal and spurious. Be happy to contact me as you browse your personal magazine pages counting ads versus content should your due diligence and subsequent findings prove in any other case!
Let’s evaluate my Inc. Journal findings with a web based magazine. I might estimate that the net journal I overview day by day has a ratio of 60% content material to forty% advertisements, which is a lot better than the paper primarily based version of Inc., or the Magazine.org estimate. Nonetheless, and this is a crucial caveat, whenever the reader selects a web based article to read, content material at all times appears. In a traditional magazine, it is somewhat more difficult, and definitely more time consuming to search out the table of contents after which leaf by the publication to arrive at page 41 to read your article. All of us will be inclined to browse paper based mostly magazines web page by page until an article catches our eye.
It is uncommon that a paper based journal shows up at our house. Infrequently we might receive a promotional copy, however our online propensity continues to grow. We receive the New York Times on Sundays though we have now questioned how long we will proceed to subscribe to the paper primarily based version. Our Boston Globe and Boston journal delivery days have lengthy since passed. We continue to embrace a virtual and online centric manner of content material consumption, which is simpler, sooner and more environmentally friendly. We seem to cite Yahoo, blogs, and online sources far more than we now say, “I read an interesting article within the paper.”
Consequently, I believe there isn’t any doubt that on-line magazines are heading in the right direction from a content and delivery standpoint. That mentioned, there are several things they may do to reinforce the reader experience. For example they may place all ads to the best of the content instead of the highest and right. They could make the font bolder and more readily viewable for the typical reader. They might add a more graphical reader interface, and even perhaps offer writers the power to put up photos. Nonetheless, they provide an invaluable service to author and reader alike, providing searchable and extensive content, without charge, a possibility for new writers to publish and an eco-friendly, non paper based mostly delivery system that’s positive to render traditional paper based magazines out of date within the coming decade. In my view, ValueMags Jobs though it is early in the game, the rating appears to be like like on-line magazines 1, paper based magazines zero, in what is almost sure to be a long run rout.
