Asked whether print magazines would last another 20 years, Remnick said, “The New Yorker — you roll it up, you put it in your bag. It’s quite easy; it’s pretty good technology.”

Remnick has long supported a paywall around the online versions of his magazine’s articles, he said.

Yes, “information wants to be free,” when it comes to distribution — but not all information is created equally, Remnick noted. A piece reported from Afghanistan by New Yorker journalist Dexter Filkins is much different from one by Joe Shmoe, he said.

Increasingly, Remnick pushes and prods his writers to create online content for the New Yorker’s Web site and apps, whether it’s additional reporting material or a blog post about a news item.

But Remnick — who was self-effacing and precise in a conversation with Kara Swisher — was careful to say he’s not seeking to protect a form of writing for its own sake. “I don’t think length should be gratuitous,” he said. “There are pieces that don’t earn their length, and they’re called ‘boring.’”

For our first-ever media conference, we’re trying to cast a wide net, so you’ll hear from movers and shakers from a range of companies. The common theme: All of them are making and distributing content during a time of unprecedented technological change. How do they adapt?

So far, we’ve announced that Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, New York editor David Remnick, Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. and News Corp. chief operating officer Chase Carey will be joining us on Jan. 30 and 31 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Nigel, just south of Los Angeles.

Let’s add three more to that list:

Bob Pittman helped build MTV, then AOL. And after spending several years as a full-time investor in everything from Zynga to a high-end tequila, he’s running a media company once again — this time overseeing radio and billboard giant Clear Channel. Why would you want to run a radio company when everyone’s consumed with the likes of iTunes, Pandora and Spotify? Because it’s still a growth industry, Pittman argues. And the fact that it’s the industry that gave him his start, at age 15, makes the story even more interesting.

Thomas Tull is a relative newcomer to Hollywood, but he’s moving fast. After founding Legendary Pictures in 2004, he’s produced a string of hits, including “The Hangover,” “The Dark Knight” and “300.” And if you accuse him of making dude-centric movies that appeal to “fanboys,” he won’t flinch — they’re the ones who still come out to the theaters, if you know how to get them there. Last spring, his track record helped him secure an investment from Silicon Valley heavyweight Accel Partners, which gives you a hint about where Tull thinks all of this is going.

Joint ventures formed by big media companies are a tricky proposition, but Rio Caraeff seems to be making his work. Vevo, the “Hulu for music videos,” is co-owned by Universal Music Group and Sony Music, and helped in large part by Google’s YouTube. And as of last month it was the second-biggest video site on the Web — a title that used to be held by Hulu.

Just like our flagship D: All Things Digital conference, D: Dive into Media will give you rare access to deep, smart talks with the people who matter. And we’ll be announcing more of them in the weeks to come. For now: You can find registration information here.

In an important deal for social reading app Flipboard, it has partnered with magazine giant Condé Nast to offer a slew of titles with branded advertising from major marketers American Express and Lexus.

The pair will share in the specially designed program, which will include the New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appetit. Additional magazines will be added, the companies said.

Flipboard, which is a popular and elegant app for the Apple iPad, has been trying to create strong ties with big publishers as it seeks to dominate distribution in the fast-growing social reading arena. It recently struck a deal with OWN, for example, the new cable network Oprah Winfrey has launched with Discovery.

Here is the official press release:

Condé Nast and Flipboard Launch
Brand Advertising On Flipboard for iPad with The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit

American Express to launch today, Lexus in October

July 25, 2011 — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Today, Flipboard and Condé Nast bring brand advertising to the popular social magazine for iPad with web content from The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit, with additional titles coming to Flipboard throughout 2011. American Express will be first to launch its campaign starting today in The New Yorker with Lexus following suit in October in Bon Appétit, The New Yorker and Wired.

Flipboard’s new program gives publishers and content creators a fresh way to offer magazine-like experiences of their web content with full-page ads to showcase advertiser brands. With a limited number of ad pages available within select content, advertisers benefit from an unprecedented share of voice within an immersive iPad reading experience. A simple tap on the magazine-style ad takes a reader to a brand’s website or Facebook page for additional information.

“Condé Nast is always looking for ways to take advantage of new channels that provide an environment in keeping with our editorial excellence, while offering unique opportunities for readers and advertisers,” said Lou Cona, CMO at Condé Nast. “Flipboard’s social magazine is a great example of that winning combination, while also giving us another way to market our own portfolio of tablet apps.”

Flipboard developed its brand advertising on the popular and groundbreaking iPad in collaboration with Condé Nast including the design and placement of the advertising inside the social magazine. Using a revenue share model, Flipboard will manage inventory and the publisher maintains its direct relationships with advertisers.

“Condé Nast continues to create new experiences for their content that also brings new reach to their advertisers. We are excited to be a part of this overarching strategy and bring their amazing stories, images, publications and advertisers to readers on Flipboard,: said Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard.

“At American Express, we actively seek innovative partners that connect our Cardmembers with compelling and creative content through platforms that fit into their evolving digital lifestyle,” said Louis Paskalis, Vice President Global Media, Content Development & Mobile Marketing of American Express. “As such, we are proud to be an inaugural advertising partner for the groundbreaking New Yorker Flipboard edition, which will provide our Cardmembers and consumers everywhere a seamless, next-generation way to experience an iconic magazine in a tablet friendly adaptation.”

An updated version of that magazine’s iPad app lets users subscribe to the weekly magazine for $5.99 a month, or the equivalent of a $1.50 an issue. That’s a steep discount from the app’s old model, which only sold individual issues for $4.99 a pop.

Conde Nast is selling an annual subscription to the iPad app for $59.99; a yearly subscription to the print version of the magazine costs $69.95. Very important: Conde says print subscribers will get iPad access for free.

At least, I think that’s the case. I’m basing all of this off the New Yorker app’s description in iTunes, but I haven’t been able to get the updated app to work yet on my iPad. The information syncs up, though, with what both AdAge and the New York Post reported last week. (UPDATE: After some futzing about, I’ve got it to work, as advertised. The app still allows you to buy an individual copy for $4.99.)

Assuming Hearst goes through with its plans, Time Warner’s Time Inc. will be the most conspicuous magazine holdout. Time Inc. and Apple just agreed to a deal that allows print subscribers to get app versions of Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Time for free, but they still haven’t agreed to subscription terms–which they’ve been stuck on since last summer.

Other big print publishers who have agreed to Apple’s terms include the New York Times, which has said it will start using iTunes to sell subscriptions in June. In February, Conde also announced it would sell digital editions of its magazines for Google’s Android platform, but has yet to do so.

Publishers–and other media companies–have previously balked at both Apple’s proposed cut–it will take 30 percent of each sale–and its control of subscriber data, including credit card information.

But it’s possible that Apple has backed off some of its original terms. Last week Hearst suggested it had gotten Apple to modify at least some of its conditions. And if that’s the case then Apple may be offering revised terms to all subscription partners. I’ve asked Apple and Conde Nast for comment.

The notion of iPad apps enthralled magazine executives a year ago, but sales have been underwhelming for many titles. One common complaint: Publishers have sold the digital titles at the same price as paper-and-ink versions, while most customers have expected to buy them at a steep discount, and to get them free with existing subscriptions.

Now that big publishers are starting to actually do just that, we’ll see if sales improve.

UPDATE: Just got some clarity on the agreement Conde hammered out with Apple. Apple’s fundamental proposition hasn’t changed, but the publisher has gotten a few concessions out of Steve Jobs and Co. Examples via people familiar with the publisher:

• Apple still controls crucial subscriber information, and only allows Conde Nast to ask for name, zip and email. But the publisher now has two chances to ask for user’s email: The first as a standard opt-in screen, and then again on a screen that asks for email and a password in order to get exclusive content.
• Conde has more flexibility on pricing than Apple originally offered. For instance, at one point, Apple didn’t want the publisher to be able to offer a print+digital bundle at a $10 premium to digital-only, but wanted all prices to be the same (which they will be when GQ offers subscriptions later this month: $19.99 a year for digital-only, or digital + print).
• The agreement extends to international markets, etc.

Small stuff, but important to the publisher. Meanwhile, Apple gets what it wants without giving up much it cares about. Steve Jobs wins.

The first one came in at about half a gigabyte of memory, and it hasn’t shrunk that much since.

And Condé Nast’s newest iPad app, from the New Yorker, isn’t much better: It takes up 173 megabytes–but that’s for a weekly issue. If Condé can’t slim the app down, a month’s worth of New Yorkers will be much heavier than the first monthly Wired app.

And at that rate, a year’s worth of issues would consume more than seven gigabytes–that’s close to half of the smallest iPad’s 16-gig memory capacity.

No problem, says New Yorker Deputy Editor Pam McCarthy, who oversaw the production of the new app. She says it’s going on a diet, soon.

Both the New Yorker and Wired have the same weight problem for the same reason: They are built on the back of an Adobe (ADBE) program that essentially functions as an image reader.

That is, each page of the magazine is turned into the equivalent of several big photos. Which means an image-rich layout at Wired or a page of text at the New Yorker both consume a lot of memory.

The New Yorker could fix that overnight by presenting the text using HTML code, McCarthy says. That would use much less memory and allow the magazine to do things like resize the type. But for the moment, Adobe doesn’t have the ability to break up HTML text into individual pages. Instead, the text scrolls down the screen, a la the popular Instapaper app.

That sounds pretty good to me, but McCarthy says it’s not a good way to read the very long pieces her magazine is famous for. “It’s pretty clear that when you have a 10,000-word story, smooth scrolling is not a good option,” she says.

So for now, the New Yorker presents small items, like its “Talk of the Town” pieces, via HTML, and presents its long stories on individual pages. Once Adobe figures out how to break up HTML text into individual pages, McCarthy will make the switch, she says. Perhaps in a month.

“The goal is to be all HTML, and we will be,” she says.

Great!

But take note, grumblers: You probably still won’t be able to download the magazine wirelessly. Apple caps wireless app downloads at 20 megabytes, and the app is unlikely to shrink that much soon, which means you’re going to need a Wi-Fi connection to get your hands on the app.

And the fact that Condé Nast can’t yet sell subscriptions for its mag apps, which would let it knock the $4.99 issue price down considerably, has nothing to do with tech limits. That’s an issue between Apple (AAPL) and the publishing industry, and that may still take some time to sort out.

This one’s from Glamour, and you can check it out for yourself at iTunes. If you’re very impatient, you can see a promotional video at the bottom of this post.

A quick rundown of things you should know about this one:

• Like Condé’s GQ and Vanity Fair apps, this one was built in-house, as opposed to Condé’s Wired app, which was built with Adobe’s (ADBE) somewhat controversial assistance. Casual readers may not tell the difference, but the performance of the two sets of apps is of intense interest to Condé, which is trying to figure out which way to go. The New Yorker is scheduled to get the Adobe treatment next.
• The app sells for $3.99, the same as the print edition. That could change down the line, because Condé is in R&D mode right now. Condé would also like to sell its own subscriptions for this stuff, but so far, it can’t. Just like every other magazine publisher.
• A new twist for this app: Readers can tap on certain images and get whisked off to a Web page where they can buy the item. Condé doesn’t get a slice of any sale, but that could change down the line.
• Excitement over the iPad goosed ad sales for Glamour’s September issue, which clocks in at 420 pages. That’s the highest total in 23 years. On the flip side, producing the app took real resources, says editor Cindi Leive. “It’s definitely a lot of work, but we’re not complaining. It’s 1,000 percent worth it.”
• Not to put too fine a point on it, but Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, and particularly the iPad department, skews very dude-heavy. This is one of the first iPad apps–and the first magazine app, I believe–built with the ladies in mind.

So, ladies–what do you think?

The Wired iPad app Condé Nast showed off this month looks great. But the chances that the publisher will give its other magazines the same treatment don’t look promising.

Condé is still creating a digital version of its tech magazine for the device. But the influential publisher says it won’t create similar iPad apps for other titles unless Apple and Adobe figure out how to work together.

Condé does plan to sell iPad-friendly versions of some of its other magazines. But they will be similar to the iPhone app the publisher has already created for its GQ title, and not the more ambitious stuff that Wired has been talking up since last fall.

In a memo the company plans to distribute internally tomorrow, Condé says it is trying two different approaches to the iPad (and tablets in general) as part of an “R&D period” that will run through October, while it figures out the best way to please readers, advertisers, etc.

But in a conversation I had with Chuck Townsend last week, Condé’s CEO was more blunt: He can’t fully embrace the Wired version, which was created with Adobe’s (ADBE) help and uses Adobe’s Flash platform, unless Apple (AAPL) embraces Flash.

Condé will have “two parallel development tracks going until the relationship between Apple and Adobe is clear,” he told me Friday.

But what about Adobe’s assurances that it’s no big deal to move the mag app it built for Wired, which is based on Flash, into a form Apple approves of? Not convincing enough, Townsend said.

I asked Townsend if he’d prefer to use the Wired model–which boasts features like integrated video, interactive ads, etc.–if Apple is okay with Flash. In that case, he said, “the answer would be an easy yes.”

Given that Apple has made its distaste for Flash a key part of the iPhone/iPod/iPad ecosystem, Condé is in a difficult position.

The magazine publisher has spent significant time and energy working with Adobe, and one of its flagship titles (“magazine of the decade,” per Adweek) has lined up behind the company. And it is indeed possible to move Flash apps to the iPhone, and presumably the iPad.

But content companies like Condé have convinced themselves that the iPad will be a huge part of their future. And this means they want Apple’s full cooperation, not just its grudging approval. For instance, there’s zero chance Apple will promote a Flash-based app in one of its ads.

The GQ app for the iPhone is pretty good, by the way, and I’m assuming it will work well on the iPad, too. But it’s a pretty straightforward transfer of the print version to digital form and lacks the bells and whistles that Wired and Adobe dreamed up.

Will anyone care? Let’s see. For now, here’s Condé’s official iPad app time table: A new version of the GQ app, tweaked to the iPad’s specs, should be available when the device launches at the end of March. After that, the company is planning similar apps for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour. The Wired app is scheduled to debut at the end of May.

And then, readers, advertisers, and everyone else can finally compare for themselves.

A treat for those of you who love reading about Hollywood’s inner workings: About 7,800 words in this week’s New Yorker dedicated to power blogger Nikki Finke and those who fear her and/or read her. Which pretty much includes everyone in Hollywood.

It’s a classic New Yorker profile, which means it’s thorough and a great read, though there’s not much in the way of news there. Writer Tad Friend mentions Jay Penske’s purchase of Finke’s services in passing, and there’s no update of Penske’s and Finke’s plans to expand the site.

For the record, in late June, Finke said she’d have a New York correspondent hired within three months; four weeks ago, Penske told me said correspondent was going to be signed within two weeks.

What’s the status now? “Not ready to comment right now,” Finke says via email. I’ve also asked Penske for an update.

Back to the story. There’s a lot of inside baseball about the symbiosis between the studios and the people who write about them, and some smart reporting about the tradecraft of reporting and how it has been altered by the rise of blogging.

I also detected at least a whiff of allusion to Janet Malcolm’s famous description of journalism, published in the New Yorker two decades ago:

Finke’s code is the Hollywood code. She is for hard work, big box-office, stars who remain loyal to their agents and publicists, and the little guy–until, that is, the big guy chats her up. Then she’s for that big guy until some other big guy calls to stick it to the first big guy. And this, too, is the Hollywood code: relationships are paramount but provisional. One executive observes that people who heed Finke’s call to snark about their competitors shouldn’t get too comfortable: “The idea is, The lion won’t eat me if I throw it another Christian. It works for a day, but you’re going back to the Colosseum soon.”

The bond between journalists and their sources is always complex–you’re friends with benefits, without being friends–but its contingent nature is particularly apparent in Hollywood. Finke’s sources can hear in her voice when she sounds low or unwell, and will ask if she needs anything. She’s grateful for the solicitude, but determined to maintain the barrier between her and those she calls “these people.” “A veterinarian treats animals–he’s not an animal,” she says.

What does Finke think? Glad you asked. She has an entire post dedicated to it, of course.

The gist:

As I expected, it’s an amusing caricature, only occasionally true but hardly insightful. Still, I’m relieved that The New Yorker didn’t lay a glove on me. I found Tad Friend, who covers Hollywood from Brooklyn, easy to manipulate, as was David Remnick [the magazine's Pulitzer Prize-winning editor in chief] , whom I enjoyed bitchslapping throughout but especially during the very slipshod factchecking process.

No comment from Friend or the New Yorker’s PR staff, which sent me a copy of the article this afternoon.

CEO Chuck Townsend said as much in a memo yesterday announcing that he’d hired McKinsey to figure out how to survive “in an emerging economy that is now predicted to be painfully slow in recovering.”

But when you see Condé’s projected numbers for its fall issues, which are traditionally bulging with ads, it’s even more startling. Particularly when you realize that the economy had already been slowing down a year ago (Disclosure: I do some free-lance work for Condé title Vanity Fair).

Take a look for yourself in the table below (click to enlarge): The numbers in the middle (faintly highlighted in blue) represent the year-over-year decline in ad pages, if you factor out the publisher’s special “Fashion Rocks” issues, which it gave up on last year. The more brutal numbers on the right are the “real” numbers. All of them are unpleasant.

Using the more favorable set of numbers, Teen Vogue is Condé’s relative star, down a mere 17 percent. And if Vogue was a publicly traded stock, it would have beaten expectations, since it came in above 400 pages–which is still down 29.7 percent (or more).

Not included the above chart: Totals for The New Yorker, Golf World, Modern Bride or Elegant Bride, since they aren’t monthlies and don’t have comparable September issues.

And here’s a trailer for “The September Issue,” a much-buzzed about documentary about Vogue’s effort to put out…well, you can figure it out.