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The Washington Post Co said on Wednesday that it is launching a new unit that will develop and manage a family of Web-based magazines.The Slate Group plans to get into other new media ventures that it develops on its own or through acquisitions, the company said in a statement.
"The rationale is that you can build an audience beyond Slate's existing audience in certain vertical or demographic categories," the group's editor-in-chief, Jacob Weisberg, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Web Magazines on The Way From Washington Post Unit [reuters.com]
I'm surprised it's taken them so long to do this!
At first, the answer would seem to be, yeah, I get a lot from WW, so I should enjoy a magazine version of it as well.
Then think about what that would look like. Hmmmm. Not so exciting.
Now, from a publishing perspective, WW looks pretty good. WW readers need computers, web services, software and they obviously like to travel. And they are likely opinion leaders on things like cellphones and such, too. The kind of people some marketers must reach.
And that's what WP is thinking. But, I don't think their thinking is refined enough. There needs to be a compelling editorial service provided, not just a demographic.
