Jupiter Research’s Fuzzy Math: Since the Jupiter Research online ad do-over prediction is getting picked up by every newsite on the planet, I’ve decided to rant on it some more. You’ll recall the prediction: Online advertising to overtake magazine advertising by 2009. And recall, this is from a research company that predicted online advertising would be today about twice as much as it is. Their excuse for needing a mulligan after blowing it the first time around is failing to factor in the whole dot.com bubble bust.

Oh. I see. Well here are three things they are not factoring in this go ’round:

1. Their math sucks. First, I don’t understand where Jupiter Research comes up with that absurdly low prediction for 2007 that $13.8 billion will be spent on magazine advertising. Media investment banking firm Veronis Suhler, which has been tracking advertising spending for 30 years, predicts business-to-business magazine advertising will climb back to $11.9 billion in 2007 (which is still lower than the $13.5 billion record year, 2000). They predict that consumer magazine advertising will increase to $14.8 billion in 2007. Combining consumer and business-to-business advertisng, VSS appears to predict a total of $28.3 billion in magazine advertising spending for 2007 according to the back of my envelope. In other words, Jupiter Research apparently is predicting that all online advertising will be more than consumer magazine advertising in 2007, a rather significant apple-orange comparison consideration missing from all the press accounts I’ve seen.

2. Their predictions are based on CPM inflation. In other words, advertisers will be paying more for online advertising. I applaud this, believe me. I just don’t believe it. Last I checked, the law of supply and demand still works. Last I checked, if there is more demand for online content, there are rich, deep wells that can be tapped a mere few inches below the surface.

3. They assume advertising will cluster around four “properties”: Google, Yahoo, AOL-Time, MSN. So, where is every business-to-business media company in the universe? If the paradigm calls for every media company to fall in line with one of those networks, don’t count on it. This is 1996 Vertical Net goofy think. The business-to-business media paradigm is not going to see companies that own all the historical data in a trade, its major tradeshows, magazines and online properties and unmatchable understandings of their market niche subjugate themselves to the online networks predicted. If you don’t think IDG will cut off search engines from indexing its sites in order to undermine one or all of these “networks” then you’re not reading what its CEO is saying.

While I love magazines, I manage my business and a big chunk of my life via the Internet. I spend more hours each week using the Internet than on any other measurable activity (maybe “sitting” beats it). But I contend the whole “Internet is a ‘medium’” that should be perceived in metaphoric terms resulting in competitive comparisons to the magazine business model is a grand misperception.

Don’t get me wrong. From a business-opportunity standpoint, I would probably benefit more if Jupiter’s predictions come true. Frankly, I actually want more advertising dollars to be spent online than in magazines. But the notion that online advertising will overtake magazine advertising in five years is nothing more than Excel spreadsheet fantasy.

I’m going to stop there: No rants about magazines being an experience medium. No rants about how impossible it is to dislodge centuries-old media habit patterns. No rants about how magazines get displayed on coffee tables as an expression of how an individual wants to identify himself or herself to others. No, I’ll just stop there.

Is this news? I thought “what else is new?” when seeing the following headline on the new MSN Newsbot pointing to a story in today’s “Royal Gazette,” a Bermuda newsite:

Story of confusion at magazine company

Actually, it is a rather confusing story about a magazine tug-of-war that leaves the reader wondering, “What’s with you people?”

In magazines this week: I really like Slate’s “In other magazines” feature. Wish it rounded-up more titles.

Another test: Pardon our progress in this test of the emergency preparedness sytem of the rexblog.

Update: Ah, success. But my thumb typing is not great.

A test of the e-mail posting
feature: Not that you don’t do so with all rexblog posts, but
please ignore this one. It’s merely a test to see if I can post to the
rexblog from my cell-phone while pretending to take part in meetings.

Update: Well it works, but for some reason it is incuding some hard breaks. I guess this means there will be another test. Sorry.

This just in: USA Today does the business blogging blah-blah story. That’s what I’ve decided to label the parade of stories about work-related weblogs “going mainstream.” .(via MicroPersuasion)

Gray area: After posting the earlier ” When is a custom published magazine not a custom published magazine? item, I received an M10 Report (not to be confused with N+1) e-mail with a link to this story. In it, my friend and fellow custom publisher Chris McMurry discusses his “magazine continuum” measure which reveals how lines blur in the whole “is it or is it not” debate.

Quote:

Ultimately, however, what’s important isn’t the difference between custom and traditional magazines but the traits they can both leverage to best serve their audiences, according to McMurry. “This shouldn’t be a debate of whether a magazine is custom or traditional but where it is on the continuum,” he says.

The article also contains a list McMurry has compiled of the largest circulated “branded publications” that will launch a few conversations, no doubt. Great job, Chris.

Digital divide: Someone who knows I’ve blogged repeatedly about my confusion with the whole concept of a “digital magazine” has e-mailed to ask why I haven’t linked to this MediaPost.com story about IDG CEO Pat Kenealy raising questions about another aspect of the retro-neo-media-concept: how the auditing agencies measure “free subscriptions” to them. Okay, now I’ve linked to it. I still don’t “get” them.

When is a custom published magazine not a custom published magazine? From reading this NYT story by David Carr, we think a single-sponsored, self-contained magazine with the Zagat brand on it that is produced and distributed as an outsert by Hearst may not get labeled a “custom published” magazine. No doubt, my contention that this is a custom magazine will be rejected by some, but this duck quacks like a custom magazine whatever one calls it. No matter. It is a great idea. And it will work. And it’s brilliant.

Quote:

Cadillac will have seven pages to market its STS car to well-heeled consumers drawn from the subscriber lists of seven Hearst magazines: Esquire; Harper’s Bazaar; O, the Oprah magazine; House Beautiful, SmartMoney; Town & Country; and Veranda. Executives of Hearst and Zagat said that Cadillac does not have any editorial input. The magazine will not be sold on newsstands….The magazine…is designed to serve a marketing function, albeit for a single client.

For the record, this is not a new concept. I don’t have the time to retell the history of custom published magazines delivered as an outsert, but believe me, it’s been done. And it’s a great idea. And I believe it should be done more often. (Disclosure: If you showed up here expective an objective opinion on this, then there’s something you need to know about this blogger.)

Expanding Kong’s kingdom: Here, I’ll just give the Chicago Tribune’s Jim Kirk the lead: “Not to worry, Chicago metrosexuals. There’s a magazine on the way just for you. Modern Luxury Inc., publisher of female-targeted CS (formerly Chicago Social), this fall plans to launch an extension of its 10-year-old magazine to be titled CS-The Men’s Book.” According to Kirk, Modern Luxury is “the expanding media empire” of brothers Michael and Stephen Kong. (Reminder: We don’t make this stuff up. We just point to it.)

Me too: Jeff Jarvis has this to say about convention converage:

“: I didn’t watch the convention last night. I went to sleep. Aren’t you jealous?

I agree. I couldn’t decide which would be more productive and enlightening: watching the convention or organizing my sock drawer. So I did neither.