The Bee Hive

• Maghound.com: Think Netflix, but for magazines : Ben Patterson : Yahoo! Tech
  Ooh, this is a good one. Note particularly the first part of the sentence: “And while I can’t say I’ve often had the urge to switch out subscriptions once I’ve settled on my favorites … given the chance, I just might (I’m looking at you, Esquire).”
  (tags: maghound magazines)
• Netflix-like model to work for magazine lovers? | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET
  No long tail on this dog: “…The results won’t be nearly as deep as Netflix, which… has a library of more than 100,000 titles and a veritable arms race … to build better algorithms. Maghound is starting out with just less than 300 magazines… .”
  (tags: maghound magazines)
• Maghound to launch this September | Editechial
  “…Netflix was able to gain their dominance… by being the largest online advertiser for years in a row, they essiantially “bought” market share and customers. I don’t believe Maghound has the funding Netflix had…” It’s Time Inc. Not enough fund
  (tags: maghound magazines netflix)
• Maghound adopts the Netflix model for magazines « Curiously Persistent
  “Interestingly, the auditing bodies will be viewing these as single-sale copies.” I do think that’s one of the more interesting wrinkles in the whole model — it’s not technically a subscription, from an Audit Bureau standpoint.
  (tags: maghound magazines)

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Yes, they screwed up by announcing they would take away the Profiles feature. But then, when it became clear that customers were upset with the announcement — and by upset, I mean ready to cancel their accounts — Netflix retracted their decision, and sent one of the best apology emails I’ve seen.

We Are Keeping Netflix Profiles

Dear Kate,

You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.

We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.

-Your friends at Netflix

Short and sweet, and to the point. “You spoke, and we listened.” That’s the essence of managing customer experience, even when it happens a little after it could have. Well done, Netflix.

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• Readers Pick: 16 Sites for Web Design Inspiration
  (tags: webdesign inspiration design galleries)
• Using CSS to Fix Anything: 20+ Common Bugs and Fixes
  (tags: css webdesign tips hacks design)

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• 16 Ways to Harness the Power of Pictures
  Certainly not all of these apply to all e-commerce catalogs — a good many of them would make little sense with magazines, for example — but this is a good list and should help spark some creative ideas about how to showcase products.
  (tags: ecommerce webdesign photography)

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• Can A New Netflix-Like Service Save Magazine Industry? - Media Money with Julia Boorstin - CNBC.com

  “I can imagine using it– I like not being locked into any commitments and it could be fun to try out magazines that are hard to find in ordinary airport newsstands. […] While working on home construction I’d sign up for all interior design magazines.”

  (tags: maghound magazines)

• Kevin Allman: Desperate times in the newspaper & magazine industries

  “The whole point of magazine subscriptions is the set-it-and-forget-it model, which is why they always try to entice readers with steeply discounted 2- and 3-year plans.”

  (tags: maghound magazines)

• Your choice of magazines « Lou Heldman on the News Media

  “Some major challenges would seem to be: Rising paper and postal costs. The magazine industry’s traditionally slow execution starting new subscriptions. More and more magazine content being accessed on the Web.”

  (tags: maghound magazines)

• Finally! Mix-and-match magazine subscriptions : Carolyn Erickson

  “I’ve been waiting for this. While I hate to pay the newstand price for magazines, I often do. Why do I pay $4.95 for a single issue when I could subscribe for about $15 per year?”

  (tags: maghound magazines)

• Maghound Sniffing for Long Tail | Media Industry Blog | BNET

  “But, unless I’m missing something, we have a small problem here, and it has to do with the length of the magazine-lover’s best-friend’s tail. The company says it has 280 magazines signed up so far, and hopes to have 300 by launch.”

  (tags: maghound magazines)

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• Behavioral Marketing for Audience Development
  My co-presenter posted the slides from our presentation out to SlideShare. Not sure how meaningful they are without the narrative, but here they are.
  (tags: marketing presentations behavioral_targeting conferences)

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• A Practical Guide to Branding
  Great high-level summary of the importance of branding and the difference between branding, advertising, and marketing - often misunderstood concepts.
  (tags: branding marketing)
• 2008 Design Trends
  A good compilation of some of what’s showing up repeatedly in various sites around the web.
  (tags: webdesign trends inspiration 2008 layout graphics)

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• Maghound: a Netflix for Magazines? - Advertising Age - MediaWorks
  (tags: magazines maghound)
• cabel.name: Maghound Mystery
  The folks at cabel.name detect price testing at the Maghound site. The comments on this blog post are as good as the entry itself.
  (tags: maghound testing)
• Maghound: Time To Offer Flexible Magazine Subscriptions
  Consumerist’s take on Maghound
  (tags: magazines maghound)

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• Netflix’s social experiment. It’s time to come clean. | Technically Incorrect - CNET News.com
  Amusing riff on social commerce.
  (tags: behavioral_targeting netflix ecommerce)
• vegalicious » Blog Archive » Hearty Ravioli - delicious vegan & vegetarian recipes for compassionate people
  This looks awesome. I’ve been wanting to try to make ravioli. Must give this one a try.
  (tags: food recipes vegan)

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• Tag Galaxy
  Cool flickr tag visualization app. I could burn a lot of time there. Wow.
  (tags: flickr webapp)
• Information Design Patterns
  Amazing piece of reference work showing many ways of representing information visually and the best practices for each.
  (tags: interface diagrams design charts reference gallery UI)

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• Webmonkey: the Web Developers Resource
  Yay! Webmonkey is back.
  (tags: webdesign tutorials web reference)

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• Amazee Project News | Amazee *beta*
  (tags: collaboration community web2.0 social networking)

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• brand tags
  Interesting experiment about the collective wisdom of brand perception.
  (tags: branding brands collaboration tags community marketing)

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• The Green Revolution In Magazine Publishing—Truth or Hype? | Circulation Management Magazine
  Why aren’t more magazine publishers printing on recycled paper?
  (tags: magazines recycling)
• Parental Fail « The FAIL Blog
  Jon sent me this and asked “we didn’t know each other then, did we?”
  (tags: drinks funny kids)

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• Lestat? « Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures - I Can Has Cheezburger?
  Best LOLcat I’ve ever seen.
  (tags: lolcats)

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Web-forward people, particularly iPhone users, what’s the next thing after Quicken? Mint? Wesabe? Quicken online? I’ve tried all of these, and I have some complaints about each. Quicken no longer affords me the convenience it used to before I had an iPhone, when I used Pocket Quicken on my Treo to record expenses as I transacted them and could sync them up back at my laptop whenever. Now I have a stack of receipts piling up and no motivation to do anything with them, but I miss the granular visibility I used to have into my finances when that system was working well for me.

So what now?

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• rexblog.com: Rex Hammock’s weblog » Blog Archive » When magazine publishers start acting like bloggers
  (tags: magazines blogging bloggers)

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• The All-You-Can-Read Subscription Offer - Blogs emedia and Technology @ FolioMag.com
  Maybe this model is the “real” Netflix of magazines, in contrast to Maghound.
  (tags: magazines magazines.com maghound magazine)

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After reading Mike and Jon’s laments about being “off the grid,” I did a little ego-surfing on Google Maps street view, and, hey whaddya know, we’re on it. They must have driven by before our transom and sidelights went in on our doorway, so it looks a little unfinished, but we’re there!

So, um, yeah. That was really important to determine. And now back to work.

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• blouses, button ups, tanks, and other tops for women from edge of urge boutique!
  Awesome stitched bird tank tee from Edge of Urge boutique online
  (tags: shopping clothing clothes)

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Thanks to the fine folks at ContentRobot, this blog is now equipped with an iPhone-ready theme. If you view www.honeybowtie.com/blog from an iPhone, it will automatically show up in a minimalist iPhone format.

And thanks to Dan Dickinson’s simple explanation, the whole honeybowtie.com site now has a custom webclip icon if you add it to your home page.

Whee!

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Yes, each of these probably merits a post of its own, and my blog has been sorely neglected of late. But since I’m powering through my to do list, I’m giving them each a bullet point, and I may choose to come back to one or more of them later.

• I’ve been working very, very hard. If you visit Magazines.com over the next few months, you may see some cool changes start to take place.
• I’ve been traveling a lot. Since the beginning of February, I’ve been in San Francisco, New York, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Boston. And not in Nashville very much, clearly.
• My 17-year-old cousin (well, first cousin once removed) has lymphoma. But she’s got a great attitude and a lot of fight in her. I’m thinking a lot about my cousin and her family.
• My coworker’s 10-year-old nephew just died from cancer after 9 months in the hospital. And then, at the funeral, the same coworker’s mother-in-law collapsed, had a heart attack, and died. I’m thinking a lot about that family.
• Karsten and I are about to go on our first cruise. It’s a vegetarian cruise.
• This weekend is the fifth anniversary of the crazy little experiment Karsten and I performed that we like to call “getting married.”
• I finally convinced Karsten to join Facebook. We’re now married on Facebook! I feel so hip.

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• winesmash.com
  My buddy Joe Hendricks just launched a new web site for wine comparisons and education.
  (tags: wine)

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• Ricky Gervais… Obviously.
  Ricky Gervais explains how, at 8 years old, he went from believer to non-believer in one afternoon.
  (tags: atheism)
• www.tennessean.com | Nashville Tennessee Green | The Tennessean
  Tips and information relating to green living in Nashville and the middle Tennessee area.
  (tags: environment ecology nashville tennessee)

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• Daryl Hall & John Oates to Be Named BMI Icons at 56th Annual Pop Awards May 20 in Los Angeles
  I need to get to LA in May. I want to see this.
  (tags: hall&oates bmi music)
• Magazines.com Partners With OTTO Digital on Behavioral Targeting Case Study | Circulation Management Magazine
  Coverage! Interview! Neato keen.
  (tags: magazines.com news)

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