Revenues dropped 3 percent for the first three months of the year, while operating income shrank by 38 percent.

Corporate parent Time Warner blamed the decline on both slowing ad sales (down 5 percent) and newsstand sales (circulation revenue was down 2 percent).

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes occasionally calls out Time Inc.’s efforts to get its titles onto the iPad and other tablets, and the unit has some digital success stories on the Web. But no one expects Time Inc. to turn into a high-growth business again.

Still, over the last few years it has managed to at least show improvements in its operating profits, as a result of layoffs and corporate restructuring.

Laura Lang, the unit’s newly appointed CEO, is Time Inc.’s third boss in two years. She has her work cut out for her.

The pitch is simple and intuitive: All the magazines you want, delivered digitally to your tablet, for a flat fee of either $10 or $15 a month.

There are catches, of course, and we’ll get to them in a minute. But the thrust of what NIM and its publishers are trying to do here is heartening, because it shows that they’re willing to experiment, for real.

They’re keeping their core business model — curated bundles of content sponsored primarily by advertising. But they’re making a key concession by not requiring consumers to make a commitment to any particular title and letting them swap out magazines at will.

Not a coincidence: Two years after the iPad launched, consumers have only shown a mild interest in tablet magazines — digital represents just 1 percent of the industry’s circulation. Publishers need to do something.

Now, on to the catches. The good news is that most of these are solvable. The bad news is that there are a few, and for now, they’re big:

• The digital magazines require an app that will only work on Android tablets running Honeycomb. Next Issue says it will submit a version to Apple soon and hopes to have it available this summer. No word on Amazon’s Kindle Fire or Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which run earlier — and heavily modified — versions of Google’s operating system.
• You can’t get any magazine you want: Just 32 titles from the four magazine publishers in Next Issue’s joint venture: Hearst, Meredith, Time Inc. and Conde Nast. (News Corp., which also owns this Web site, is a Next Issue backer, but hasn’t put anything it owns into this offering.) That said, the list includes lots of the publishers’ best-known titles: Sports Illustrated, Fortune, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Elle, Better Homes and Gardens, etc. Next Issue says it will add more “later this year,” and also plans to bring outside publishers into the offering.
• If you like reading magazines in both print and digital form, this offer won’t work for you. While publishers have recently started bundling print and digital subscriptions for the same price — essentially giving away digital in exchange for full-priced print subscriptions — these deals don’t include any print issues at all.

But for all of that, there’s plenty here to be optimistic about, whether you’re a magazine maker or a magazine reader.

Publishers have struggled to figure out how to take advantage of the iPad and other tablets, and for now they’ve ended up with something that looks and works almost exactly like a paper magazine, with a couple digital bells and whistles.

That’s not a terrible thing — some of the tablet issues work well, and publishers tell me they think they are selling them to new readers, which is a good thing.

But for two years there haven’t been many compelling reasons to pick up a tablet issue instead of a print one. Changing the basic subscription proposition, though? That makes things very interesting.

It’s also very much an experiment, which is the word every publisher I talked to about the launch used in the last couple days. “No one has done this before, and there are lots of practical reasons for that,” says Hearst’s John Loughlin, who oversees the publisher’s tablet efforts.

And publishers still have basic stuff to figure out, like how they’ll get paid for their titles. The rough idea is that they’ll get a share of revenue based on the amount of time consumers spend with their magazines, but they still need to hash out details.

The same goes for conversations about circulation and advertising. Right now, for instance, the magazines you read when you give Next Issue $10 a month (if you want monthly titles — if you want weeklies like the New Yorker, it’s $15 a month) won’t be counted in publishers’ official totals.

But all of that sounds good to me. It sounds like an industry ready to try some stuff and see what works. Just like all the start-ups that insist they want to disrupt it.

“Anybody that tells you that they have the answer, or that their model is the model that would be successful 5 years from now — they’d be suspect,” says Loughlin. “We’re very much in a learning mode.”

Now it is trying the same gambit, but with Mark Zuckerberg instead of Steve Jobs. If you want to read “Inside Facebook,” Miguel Helft and Jessi Hempel’s pre-IPO profile, you’ll need to pay up.

I just plunked down $1.99 for the Amazon edition, and zipped through it this morning. Like the Apple story, this one is focused on the company’s structure and management philosophy more than anything, which is quite useful for outsiders. Alas, no org chart.

And if you’re into profiles of big Silicon Valley companies in big business magazines, this is your lucky week: Businessweek’s Brad Stone profiles Twitter in a story out now.

The cover art is very promising:

It’s the typically newsless time around Christmas and New Year’s, but for once there has actually been a lot going on at Yahoo.

Last week, the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s typically moribund board decided to move ahead with negotiations to sell part of its stake in China’s Alibaba Group, as well as all of its shares in Yahoo Japan.

While that is still not a done deal, it adds clarity to the Yahoo mishegas, as current leaders there seek to turn around the company’s lagging fortunes.

Now, as Yahoo continues to contemplate a pair of partial investment bids by private equity firms Silver Lake and TPG Capital into 2012, more focus will be on the selection of a CEO candidate to take over, sources said.

While I have floated some names that have been contemplated — such as Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson, former aQuantive and Microsoft exec Brian McAndrews, and board member David Kenny — I have collected some more that seem to be getting the once-over and are being mentioned internally as well as externally.

Sources said that the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee at Yahoo, which is run by independent director Patti Hart, has been looking for someone with definite public company experience, as well as expertise in large-scale management.

As to talent, candidates seem to be either good at running big platforms, or deeply knowledgeable about advertising and media as well as technology.

Another important criteria, said sources: Someone who is “collaborative” and nonconfrontational. As in, not like the former and very pugnacious CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired in September.

Thus, here’s another trio of candidates to consider, while we wait — and who knows how long that will be given that the Asian activity could have tired out for a bit this usually slow-moving board:

Chris Liddell: The former CFO of Microsoft is an interesting name that just popped up recently, and it makes some sense when you think about the possible mindset of the Yahoo board.

Liddell, who has a charming New Zealand accent, did a short stint, from January of 2010 to March of this year, as CFO at General Motors. Recently married to another former Microsoft exec, he has since been living in New York.

He apparently loves living in the Big Apple.

But when he left GM, Liddell made it clear he wanted to go for a top job next. He was among the candidates for a recent search for a CEO of Time Warner’s Time Inc. (an effort that was run by exec search firm Heidrick & Struggles, which is also conducting the Yahoo hunt).

Known as tough and decisive, he certainly is qualified to deal with complex financial situations, such as the one in which Yahoo now finds itself knee-deep. One knock: Little product or advertising experience.

Laura Desmond: While certainly a dark horse, Desmond has been queried by Heidrick, said several sources.

She is CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group, a subsidiary of Publicis, one of the largest media planning and buying agencies, making Desmond one of advertising’s most prominent players.

Well-known in Yahoo’s key market, she is considered a savvy and smart exec with a wry sense of humor.

I happen to particularly like one line from one of her bios:

“Ms. Desmond’s career has been driven by two caveats: Take intelligent risks and learn more from failure than from success.”

She could learn a lot at Yahoo. (I know, easy jab, but it works!)

David Rosenblatt: The former DoubleClick CEO, who went on to a big ad job at Google after it paid $3.2 billion for the company, is also a long shot, mostly by his own choosing.

The sharp exec is always on the short list of CEO candidates for a lot of big, splashy online jobs, but he seems to want to swim his own way.

Case in point: He was recently named CEO of New York-based 1stdibs, a relatively obscure online marketplace known among antique dealers and interior designers looking for one-of-a-kind furniture, art and lighting.

Yes, that’s right: Fancy lamps.

Rosenblatt also serves on the boards at Group Commerce, Twitter and IAC.

All that Internet ad and e-commerce experience is exactly why Rosenblatt would be one of the better choices for CEO of Yahoo. But, for him, I would guess taking such a job is probably in the life’s-too-short category.

More to come, obvi!

Ms. Lang’s hire, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, would put the head of one of the largest digital agencies in charge of the biggest U.S. magazine publisher at a time when Time Inc. and others grapple with a murky print-advertising picture and the migration of consumers to digital devices.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Time Warner’s publishing unit told its employees this afternoon that five magazines — Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, People and Real Simple — would be available on the Kindle Fire tomorrow.

The announcement comes after negotiations that dragged on for weeks and continued through Tuesday morning — a process that baffled most of Time Inc.’s peers, who signed on to the new device in time for its September unveiling.

Supposedly, the major stumbling block for Time Inc. was that Amazon has retained the ability to set the retail price for the magazines it sells, which means it could theoretically slash prices or give away the magazines for free. That scenario would be a major bummer for all the publishers who have been diligently trying to convince subscribers and newsstand buyers that they’ve been underpaying for their reading material.

But Amazon has told Time’s competitors, like Condé Nast, Hearst and Meredith, that it doesn’t intend to beat down prices, and that assurance was apparently enough for them. Jeff Bewkes’ company apparently needed more convincing.

This never seemed to be an issue, by the way, with Barnes & Noble and its new Nook tablet; Time Inc. was a part of that gadget’s launch announcement.

Like the titles that Time Inc. sells via the iPad and other Android tablets, access to the Kindle Fire editions will come via bundled deals, where consumers pay a single price and get both paper and digital copies of their magazines.

Here’s the memo that consumer marketing head Steve Sachs sent out at the end of the day:

November 15, 2011
To: Time Inc. Employees
From: Steve Sachs
Re: Time Inc. Titles Now Available on Amazon’s Kindle Fire

I’m pleased to share the news that Time Inc. has just reached a deal with Amazon that will allow subscribers to our magazines to enjoy their subscriptions on the new Kindle Fire. Starting tomorrow, subscribers of FORTUNE, PEOPLE, Real Simple, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and TIME will be able to access digital editions of these magazines on the Kindle Fire at no additional cost. Other Time Inc. titles will follow shortly.

To date, hundreds of thousands of Time Inc. print subscribers have authenticated to receive their digital editions, with thousands more being added each week. Our agreement with Amazon continues to expand our All Access strategy, adding the Kindle Fire to the growing list of platforms where consumers can enjoy our content, including Apple’s iPad, the Barnes & Noble NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet, the Android Marketplace and Next Issue’s store.

It’s important to note that Time Inc. is the only publisher designing all of its digital magazine apps specifically for tablets. Because we’re producing a rich consumer experience made for each device, our brands translate beautifully — and the Kindle Fire is no exception.

Adding the Amazon launch to our platforms has meant that IT and other dedicated teams have had to work quickly and nimbly. I want to offer a special thanks to all those who have been hard at work bringing our brands to life on tablets.

S.S.

Previously a vice president in the mobile-phone maker’s media division, Mr. Linardos will be responsible for increasing sales of Time Inc.’s digital products at a critical time. Magazine publishers are grappling with how to serve the small but fast-growing audience tablet audience while hanging onto more lucrative print readers.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

When Amazon unveils its new iPad-like device on Wednesday, it will have the backing of at least three of the big magazine publishers: Hearst, Conde Nast and Meredith all have deals to sell digital versions of their titles on the new device, according to industry sources.

The notable standout, for now, is Time Warner’s giant Time Inc., which has yet to come to terms with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. A person familiar with negotiations suggests that a deal won’t get done in the next two days, either — “hopefully by the end of the year” was the guidance I got today.

Publishing sources say Amazon’s terms will roughly mirror the ones that Apple has established with most magazines this year: Publishers will keep around 70 percent of all Amazon sales, and the retailer will share some customer data with the publishers. The deals aren’t cookie cutter replicas, however, and in some cases Amazon may take a little more or less than 70 percent, depending on the title and the customer offer.

It’s worth noting that Time Inc., the likely holdout for Wednesday’s launch, has yet to completely embrace Apple’s subscription terms as well. The publisher sells individual titles through Apple’s App Store but has yet to strike a deal to sell subscriptions directly from the platform.

Industry sources say publishers have tailored some of their titles for the seven-inch tablet that Amazon plans to unveil on Wednesday, with the expectation that the company will roll out a bigger version that is closer in size to the iPad next year. Both tablets will use Google’s Android operating system.

The publishers who are on board with Amazon view their decision to link up as a no-brainer: They want more distribution channels for their stuff, not fewer. And they’ve been begging, unsuccessfully, for a credible competitor to the iPad since April 2010.

There’s no guarantee that Amazon will be one either, of course. But if you’re going to try to sell stuff, it doesn’t hurt to sell it through the world’s biggest e-commerce platform.

“You’ve got beauty and design with Apple, which we love,” says a publisher who has an Amazon deal. “But with Amazon you have marketing, and ease of use. We’re very optimistic.”

And Amazon has another compelling reason for publishers to join up: It’s already a huge partner for many of them, as a marketing platform for their ink-and-paper titles. Hearst and Amazon spelled out that relationship in a press release earlier this month, which noted that “Amazon will become Hearst’s single-largest third-party seller of print subscriptions for its magazines via digital channels.”

2011 isn’t 2008, yet. So Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente doesn’t think the ad business is going to get hammered — he just thinks it’s going to grow less. The exception here is very old print media, like magazines, newspapers and direct mail, in part because of pressure from daily-deal guys like Groupon and Living Social.

Note that Time Warner has already said it has seen weakness at Time Inc. during Q3, and I’ve heard the same from other publishers, as well.

And as with the last go-round, DiClemente (and others) argue that Web advertising will fare best if we really do go into a double dip.

It’s the same argument, too: Ad dollars still haven’t completely followed consumers into the Web, so there’s plenty of growth left, especially when it comes to video, etc. And Web advertising is more efficient than offline, so in a cash crunch, advertisers will have more incentive to use it, etc.

Which may all be true (I hope it is, given where you’re reading this). But also note that both AOL and Yahoo have made noises about softness in display ads this summer. Then again, both of those companies have plenty of their own problems.

Adam Lashinsky, Fortune magazine’s high-profile Silicon Valley reporter, will be penning a book titled “Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired — and Secretive — Company Really Works.”

An expansion of a well-read article that Lashinsky wrote for the publication earlier this year, the book will be available on Jan. 18, 2012 from Business Plus, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

Lashinsky’s will be the second Apple tome to be coming out that will shed more light inside the workings of Silicon Valley’s most iconic company.

In November, former Time Inc. writer and editor Walter Isaacson’s much anticipated biography about Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs will be released by Simon & Schuster.

“Steve Jobs” has been written with cooperation from Jobs, who has not done so in the past.

Lashinsky said in an interview today he did not garner Jobs’s help on the book, but did manage to get a deep inside look at the company.

“Doing an unauthorized book is harder,” said Lashinsky. “But what you get is well-reported information, which is outside the message Apple wants to deliver, and there is so much good stuff, this company is worth far more than an article.”

Lashinsky has been a longtime reporter in tech, including covering Apple, a company that is notoriously secretive and difficult to report about.

Still, Lashinsky has written a lot about the maker of the groundbreaking Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad devices, including a piece in 2008 about recently installed CEO Tim Cook, titled “The Genius Behind Steve: Could the Operations Whiz Run The Company Someday?”

Inside Apple will be more about the entire company, which has vaulted from near death only 15 years ago to become one of the most highly valued companies in tech and, in fact, globally.

The publisher promises a lot of insidery facts, including, “how Apple creates killer products, forges intense bonds with consumers, and gets what it wants from suppliers … the lessons about leadership, product design and marketing are universal, and they should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career or creative endeavor.”

Lashinsky said these are important lessons for others to explore.

“So much of what Apple does stands decades of business teaching on its head, because they just don’t do things the way other companies do,” he said. “The rest of the business world might want to pay attention.”

Indeed, they should.

Short version: A few prominent players have accepted Apple’s terms and will be giving Steve Jobs a big chunk of their subscription revenue.

Many more are sticking around the App Store, but removing any kind of e-commerce link from their apps. This makes their apps less useful, but at least it doesn’t cost them any money.

And a third group is trying an end run by building their own Web apps that will work on Apple devices without requiring the company’s approval.

Some examples from each category:

Play along, eat the tax: Some big print publishers, including the New York Times, Condé Nast and Hearst, are working with the new rules.

That means that they’ll hand over 30 percent of the subscription revenue they generate via iOS apps every month, and that they won’t have access to as much consumer data as they’d get if they sold the subscriptions on their own. But they’ll put up with it in order to reach the 225 million iTunes accounts Apple controls.

(Variation on the theme — play along, pass the tax along to consumers: Music subscription service Rdio is accepting Apple’s tax as well. But to protect its margins it is raising the price for subscriptions sold through iOS devices, from $10 to $15. After Apple gets its 30 percent cut, Rdio will end up with the same $10 it would have had before the new rules.)

Stay in iTunes, but grudgingly: This is the “better than nothing” approach. Services like Netflix, Hulu, Rhapsody, Spotify, and publishers like Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal (which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp) are keeping their apps in iTunes. But rather than hand over cash and lose access to customer data, they won’t sell any subscriptions through their iTunes apps.

And at Apple’s insistence, they are stripping out any links that send customers to the companies’ home Web sites. This even applies to services that aren’t selling subscriptions at all, but are offering access to content as part of other subscription services. See, for example, ESPN’s WatchESPN app, which tells users that they have to visit an ESPN Web site to sign up for the service, which is free for certain cable company customers. But the app doesn’t offer a live link to the site, just an address.

End run: The Financial Times was the first big media company to build a Web site that mimics an app but works on Apple’s Safari browser, as a way of working around Apple’s restrictions while reaching Apple’s customers. Now Amazon has followed suit, as has Wal-Mart’s Vudu video service.

Note that both the FT and Amazon continue to keep their old apps in iTunes; they’ve just neutered them. You can still read Kindle titles you bought on Amazon’s iOS app, for instance — you just can’t press a button that will take you directly to Amazon’s Web site to buy a new one.

So what does all of that tell us about the App Store ecosystem and how developers will fare in and out of it?

Not much. It’s pretty early. We might have a better idea in a few months when some publicly traded companies like the Times may end up talking about their Apple relationship during earnings calls. (Admittedly, that’s a stretch of a hope: Apple has a way of getting most of its partners to STFU.)

That said, here’s a not-very-out-on-a-limb prediction: Companies who already have lots of customers and are already in frequent communication with them, like Amazon, should do fine outside of the store.

And companies that have lots of potential customers but little traction, like Vudu, will likely struggle. Particularly since that company sells the same thing — video-on-demand rentals and sales — that Apple already sells through iTunes.

What that means in practical terms:

• Time Inc. currently supports tablet versions of its four highest-profile titles — Time, Sports Illustrated, People and Fortune — and will roll out another 17 versions for titles like InStyle, Entertainment Weekly and Real Simple.
• All of the titles will be available via Apple’s iTunes, Google’s Android store, Hewlett-Packard’s new tablet platform and Next Issue Media, the “Hulu for Magazines” joint venture that Time Inc. spearheaded a couple years ago.
• Time Inc. also highlights an agreement to sell digital subscriptions via Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and doesn’t mention Amazon in the release (below). But it’s a very safe bet that Time and other publishers will be supporting Amazon’s new tablet when it’s released this fall.
• It’s much less likely that you’ll see the titles on Research In Motion/BlackBerry’s unloved PlayBook, which isn’t mentioned in the release.
• Note that while the release mentions “digital subscriptions,” what that really means is “digital-only subscriptions available everywhere but iTunes.” Apple and Time Inc. still haven’t come to terms on subscription rules, so right now the only way to get a digital subscription for the iPad is to buy a subscription package that also includes print.

Expect to hear Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes say a bit more about this during his earnings call this morning. Here’s the press release:

TIME INC. TO LAUNCH TABLET EDITIONS FOR ITS ENTIRE U.S. PORTFOLIO OF 21 TITLES BY YEAR END

New York, NY – August 3, 2011 – As part of Time Inc.’s industry-leading effort to deliver its iconic brands everywhere consumers want them, the company today announced that all 21 of its U.S. titles will be available as tablet editions by the end of 2011. Time Inc. will be the first major U.S. magazine publisher to make all of its titles available on all leading tablet platforms, with products designed specifically for this medium.

Brands including INSTYLE, REAL SIMPLE and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY will now join PEOPLE, TIME, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and FORTUNE with digital tablet versions. To date, Time Inc.’s digital magazine and other content apps have been downloaded more than 11 million times. Hundreds of thousands of current print subscribers have upgraded their subscriptions to include the tablet editions at no extra cost, with thousands more being added each week. Time Inc. has also sold more than 600,000 digital single copies of those four titles.

“Now is the time for us to make this bold commitment. In the coming year, there will clearly be many more consumers using tablets, accelerating demand for content and driving advertiser interest. We are putting ourselves in a great position to take advantage of these opportunities,” said Maurice Edelson, EVP and a member of Time Inc.’s interim management committee. “Having our entire portfolio available on tablets will create a significant new digital reach for our advertisers.”

Today, the company also announced an agreement with Barnes & Noble to sell digital subscriptions and single-copy issues of FORTUNE, PEOPLE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and TIME on the NOOK Color starting later this month, with the rest of the portfolio to follow by year-end. The Barnes & Noble agreement adds the NOOK Color to a growing list of platforms where Time Inc. distributes its digital titles, including Apple iPad, Android Marketplace, HP TouchPad and Next Issue Media’s store.

Time Inc. offers consumers an All Access approach that includes print and digital subscriptions, as well as digital-only subscriptions and the ability to purchase single copies. Additionally, each of Time Inc.’s 28 million print subscribers will have the option to upgrade their subscription to include the digital edition at no additional cost. The digital editions will be presented using reader software that is native to each platform.

Print ads will be incorporated into the tablet editions. The company plans to report digital sales and subscriber information to ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) beginning in January 2012. Time Inc. research shows consumers place a high value on digital editions that include ads.

Don’t worry about it, Forbes chairman Steve Forbes tells his staff, via an internal memo which you can read below.

Before we go further: I worked at Forbes for 10 years; I still know lots of folks who work there. Now: The Fortune piece is useful because it details, via internal documents from banker J.P. Morgan, just how badly the bet that Elevation Partners placed on the magazine in 2006 has worked out.

The fact that Elevation (better known as either Roger McNamee’s private equity fund, or Bono’s private equity fund) bought a minority stake in the publisher at close to the market peak has been well known.

But the Fortune piece spells out just how badly timed it was: Elevation’s projections had Forbes generating close to $90 million in EBITDA in 2009; instead, the company had operating losses of $19.7 million. Last year the company went into default on a $90 million credit line.

Fortune also argues that the deal has been a disaster for the Forbes family, but I’m not sure that this is the case. After all, it allowed them to take more than $100 million out of the company while holding on to a majority stake. If they hadn’t done that five years ago, they certainly couldn’t do so today.

Regardless, Fortune does a good job of showing just how precarious life has been at Forbes for the past couple years — as it has been at every business magazine (just ask Portfolio and BusinessWeek) — and the publisher’s uncertain future. Elevation and Forbes have interlocking put and call options that kick in next month, and it will be interesting to see how long Elevation remains a minority owner.

—

Fortune Story on Forbes
Steve Forbes [XXX@forbes.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 9:43 AM
Today Fortune magazine published a story on Forbes with the clear intention of disrupting the business of its most formidable competitor.

Fortune was aware that this was highly confidential, private information and of no value to release to the public. Though the intention is to harm our business, it will not adversely impact Forbes because it highlights a very difficult time in the past when all the media industry was going through unprecedented upheaval.

Forbes has the finest team – you – in the media world today. Forbes is profitable and is successfully navigating these extraordinarily turbulent seas. The company continues to grow and thrive with powerful new strategies and talent.

We are attaching (below) a statement that will be sent later today to the media responding to this article.

Media Statement
Contact: Monie Begley Feurey
SVP Corporate Communications, Forbes Media
XXX@forbes.com

Forbes Media is profitable and in full compliance with all bank loan covenants.

In 2010, as part of a newly formulated strategy, Forbes sold Investopedia for cash realizing a profit on the sale of this investment. The decision to sell this non-core investment was taken
by the board of Forbes Media upon the recommendation of management.

In 2008, Steve Forbes and Tim Forbes, CEO and COO repectively, initiated a reorganization of the company, including the integration of its independent operating units, Forbes magazine and Forbes.com.

They also decided to expand the company management team, which led to the successful recruitment first of Lewis D’Vorkin as Chief Product Officer and then Mike Perlis as CEO of the integrated business.

The last decade has seen unprecedented upheaval across the media industry.Within that decade Forbes magazine, uniquely among its largest competitors, Fortune and Business Week, grew its total readership to record levels – 5.4 million in 2010 – and grew its share of advertising from 33% to 40%. The company also launched 16 local language editions, giving it the largest worldwide brand footprint among business publishers. At the same time, Forbes.com grew to one of the largest and most profitable business websites in the world, with, on average, 20 million monthly unique visitors.

Since 2010, the company has pursued its strategy of putting journalism at the center of social media. This strategy is at the cutting edge of media today, which is why it is garnering support from audiences and advertisers alike.

Elevation Partners are enthusiastic supporters of the direction of the company and have been full participants as these strategies have been developed.

Steve Forbes remains Editor in Chief and Chairman of Forbes Media. Tim Forbes is Chairman of Forbes Digital. The Forbes family remains the controlling shareholder of Forbes Media.

The weekly is rolling out an “all-access” plan that kicks in Thursday. It will give readers a chance to purchase bundles that will give them access to the magazine in multiple formats: Print editions delivered to their mailboxes, app versions beamed to their iPads and other tablets, and Web versions at Time.com.

This is the second time Time Inc., Time Warner’s publishing unit, has rolled out a print/digital bundle. Earlier this year it announced a similar “magazines everywhere” package for Sports Illustrated.

You can read pricing details in the press release below. What you won’t see there: News that, along with the bundles, the magazine will put up a paywall on its site which will keep non-subscribers from reading the print version for three months after it hits the newsstand.

If that sounds familiar, there’s a reason. Time.com put up a wall for its print magazine content almost exactly a year ago, and said at that time it would be doing that for most of its titles.

It’s unclear to me when and why the title knocked down its Web barriers — right now, for instance, you can read all of Time’s most recent issue for free — but they are going back up this week, and some Time staffers I’ve heard from are grumbling about the move. But as I’ve said before, it’s likely that the vast majority of Time.com’s visits and page views come from stuff that isn’t in the magazine, and that will continue to be free, so most site visitors may not notice any change at all.

Also worth noting is that while last spring’s Sports Illustrated announcement focused on Time Inc.’s deal to sell magazine subscriptions via Google’s Android platform, today’s news notes that the subscriptions will also work with Apple’s iPad.

That is: Even though Time Inc. isn’t using Apple’s new iTunes subscription service, it’s able to use Apple’s new iTunes subscription terms to deliver iPad subscriptions on its own. Time won’t sell subscriptions to the magazine through iTunes or via the app, but it will encourage readers to head to a Time Inc. Web page to sign up for a bundle. That means the company loses a marketing resource, but retains 100 percent of its subscription revenue, and all of the subscriber information it treasures.

TIME LAUNCHES “ALL ACCESS”
Readers Will Now Pay A One-Time Subscription Fee To Get the Print Edition
Plus Access to Tablet Apps and the New Magazine Channel On TIME.com

(New York, July 19, 2011)—TIME announced today that, starting this week, subscribers
will now pay one price for an “All Access” subscription to TIME magazine content wherever
they want to read it: in print, online and on tablet apps. This subscription model rewards loyal
customers with more choice and quality at no additional cost.

With TIME’s “All Access,” current subscribers to TIME will continue to receive the print
magazine, plus have access to a new paid magazine channel on TIME.com and be able to
download their issues on Apple iPad, HP Touchpad and Samsung Galaxy Tab. The TIME.com
magazine channel will be a paid section of the website that will contain all new magazine
content on an ongoing basis beginning with this week’s issue. Subscribers will activate their “All
Access” accounts using their existing magazine account number or mailing address.

New subscribers will have three options to access TIME magazine content:
1. Subscribe to TIME “All Access” for $30/year and receive 56 print issues, full online
access and all tablet apps
2. Sign up for a 1-week short term pass to access magazine content on TIME.com for $4.99/
week
3. Sign up for a $2.99/month “All Access” subscription. Each month readers get all of the
print editions of TIME, the tablet editions and access to magazine content on TIME.com.
This subscription can be cancelled anytime.

The new magazine channel on TIME.com is one of a series of new content verticals the site
has launched in the past year and a half, including Newsfeed, Swampland, Lightbox, Techland,
Healthland and MoneyLand. TIME.com has 95% original content separate and distinct from
magazine content and has broken multiple traffic records in 2011. In June, the site had 93 million
pages views, up 31% year over year, and 11.3 million unique visitors, up 27% year over year,
according to comScore. TIME is up in ad pages and revenue for the first six months of the year,
up 8.1% in pages and 11.2% in revenue. TIME is the #1 magazine brand on Twitter with more
than 2.6 million followers.

TIME is the second Time Inc. title to launch a subscription plan allowing consumers to pay once
and access their content across multiple platforms. Sports Illustrated announced a similar “All
Access” plan in February 2011.

Now it’s bringing in someone to help them pull that off. The service has hired Time Inc.’s Dan Roth, Fortune magazine’s digital editor.

LinkedIn has recently been promoting “LinkedIn Today,” its equivalent of Facebook’s news feed, which shows users stories that their friends/associates recommend. Roth’s first job will be to build up that service and its associated home page, and then move on to other projects, he says.

He’s the second high-profile Time Inc. editor to head out for a high-profile tech company this month. Josh Quittner, who had been one the key drivers in the publisher’s tablet media efforts, has left to join Flipboard, the high-profile iPad media aggregator.

Roth recently helped Fortune launch its own Web app, which features a deep integration with LinkedIn.
—-

Disclosure: I worked with Dan for a few months way back in the late 1990s, and he interviewed me when he wrote about my last employer a couple years ago. It’s a good read.

Starting Wednesday, some Samsung Galaxy tablet users will be able to buy app versions of seven magazines, as single copies or monthly subscriptions. The deal comes via Next Issue Media, the “Hulu for Magazines” consortium five big publishers put together to build their own digital newsstand.

This is a cautious first step, with lots of caveats, and Next Issue is taking pains to play down expectations, calling it an “early preview.”

And by my calendar, it’s a bit behind Next Issue’s previously announced plans to have something in the market early this year.

But it’s still something. And you could argue that while the digital magazine market formally kicked off last year when Apple introduced the iPad, it’s been moving pretty slowly since then. So Next Issue really hasn’t missed that much.

Details:

• Four of the consortium’s partners are selling titles: Esquire and Popular Mechanics from Hearst; Fitness and Parents from Meredith; the New Yorker from Conde Nast; and Fortune and Time from Time Warner’s Time Inc. News Corp., the other partner, doesn’t publish any print magazines (they do own this Web site, though).
• Prices are set by publishers, who will be able to offer existing print subscribers free digital editions. For now, though, they can’t offer new subscribers print + digital bundles like the ones that Conde Nast has started selling via iTunes. Next Issue CEO Morgan Guenther says that’s coming, along with the possibility of more interesting offers, like Netflix-style subscriptions that let customers swap titles in and out.
• The titles are only available to Galaxy owners who have bought a model with wireless service from Verizon, which sells the titles through a single app available in its Vcast app store.
• Next Issue plans to offer more magazines, on more devices, in the fall. CEO Morgan Guenther says that by the end of the year the consortium will be selling at least 40 titles, and should also have a version of its app available for HP’s WebOS.
• Apple gives publishers 70 percent of each transaction, and Guenther says magazine publishers will get “at least” that much; device-makers or carriers will split the rest with the consortium.
• Crucially, the publishers will get full access to all subscriber information, including credit card numbers. Apple won’t do that.

Again, these magazines will only be available to a subset of a subset of Android tablet owners, which isn’t that big a market to begin with, for now.

But it is a working demonstration of the concept the consortium promised way back in 2009: A single place to get magazines from multiple publishers, controlled by the publishers themselves.

And theoretically, selling magazines on the terms they want on Android will give the publishers more leverage to get what they want from Apple. But they’re a long way from getting Steve Jobs to back down from his terms–let’s see how sales play out on the two different platforms first.

Yahoo is on a bit of a hiring spree, picking up longtime Internet exec Robertson Barrett (pictured here), to run its critical and powerful Yahoo News and Finance sites.

Barrett has held top positions at Tribune Interactive, Time Inc., ABC News, Primedia’s Channel One Interactive and The Feedroom.

Barrett worked most recently as chief strategy officer of Perfect Market, a Comcast-backed start-up.

Last week, Yahoo announced that Jai Singh will join the company as editor in chief. Before that Ken Fuchs was tapped as VP of Sports, Games and Entertainment.

For the huge Yahoo News job, Barrett replaces Mark Walker, who left for Disney a month ago. Steve Schultz left the top Yahoo Finance job last fall.

Here is Yahoo’s official press release, which confirms it and the particulars:

Yahoo! Names Robertson Barrett Vice President of News and Finance

Media Industry Vet to Oversee Company’s Category-Leading Properties

Yahoo! today announced that Robertson Barrett will join the company as Vice President of News and Finance. Based in Santa Monica, Calif., Barrett starts May 16, and will report to Mickie Rosen, senior vice president of the Yahoo! Media Network.

A media industry veteran, Barrett brings more than 20 years experience leading online ventures and as a reporter, including senior positions at Tribune Interactive, Time Inc., ABC News, Primedia’s Channel One Interactive, and The Feedroom. His appointment is the latest addition to the Yahoo! Media Network leadership team, which recently announced that Jai Singh will join the company as Editor-in-Chief, and Ken Fuchs as Vice President of Sports, Games and Entertainment.

Barrett will oversee Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Finance in the U.S., two of the company’s most renowned properties. In the U.S., the Yahoo! News Network is No. 1 in the general news category, attracting 86.6 million unique users in March 2011 and Yahoo! Finance has been the top finance destination for 39 straight months, attracting 42.6 million users in March 2011–more than twice as many unique visitors as the No. 2 destination Dow Jones & Company (comScore).

“Rob’s addition to our leadership team comes at a pivotal time for Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Finance, especially in light of the global and economic events driving massive consumer interest and engagement,’ said Rosen. “We have ambitious plans for these properties, and Rob will play a critical role in leading these businesses and deepening Yahoo!’s position as the premier digital media company.”

Barrett’s appointment comes on the heels of the largest traffic week in the history of Yahoo! News. Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Yahoo! News has experienced its heaviest-trafficked week, including 3 of its top 10 most visited days ever. Since the news broke, Yahoo! News has served more than 865 million pageviews, attracting more than 20.4 million unique users on Monday, May 2 and 17.6 million unique users on Tuesday, May 3 in the U.S. Yahoo! reaches more than 680 million users globally each month.

Barrett most recently served as Chief Strategy Officer of Perfect Market, a Comcast-backed venture, where he was responsible for building relationships with major news brands for the organization. Previously, he was EVP of Tribune Interactive, where he managed the operations and strategic development of online properties in 40 U.S. markets, including latimes.com, chicagotribute.com, baltimoresun.com, and all Tribune news, entertainment and TV sites. He also was previously VP and GM of The FeedRoom Inc., an Internet news venture backed by NBC, where he oversaw the development of video-on-demand for NBC, Tribune Company, CBS and local station groups. He was also co-founder and operating lead at online ventures for Time Inc., ABC News and Primedia’s Channel One Interactive. He holds a BA from Duke University and a Masters from Harvard University.

Instead, tech bloggers quickly devoured the piece and spat it back up, in chunks, on their own sites. And even if they were inclined to, they couldn’t point their readers to the source material.

What were Fortune’s managers thinking about? Quite a bit.

“This is an entirely new experiment,” says Dan Roth, managing editor of Fortune Digital. “We’re trying to figure out the best way of releasing journalism online.”

The short version: Fortune will eventually make the story available, for free, on the Web. But first it’s going to see if it can use Adam Lashinsky’s piece to generate more than just eyeballs. Perhaps even cash.

In the past, Fortune would have published the Apple story online last Thursday, at the same time the magazine was showing up on newsstands and in mailboxes.

Instead, the magazine teased the piece with a post from Fortune.com Apple blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Saturday, telling print subscribers they could read the full story on Fortune’s iPad app for free. And that everyone else could either sign up for a $20 subscription–which would give them access to the app–or buy an individual iPad edition for $4.99.

Fortune hasn’t been able to pull this off until this week. It’s the first time the magazine has been able to offer its iPad app to print subscribers for free, via a pact that parent company Time Inc. just struck with Apple.

Roth says the main idea behind gating the story on the iPad app is to give print subscribers a bonus for their patronage. Or to make them feel like they weren’t dummies.

“There was this feeling that we’re sort of pissing off our subscribers,” by publishing the magazine’s best stories on the Web, often before paying customers got their hands on them, he says. “The problem was there wasn’t anything we could have offered them before.”

And if Fortune can sell some subscriptions or app downloads, even better. Over the weekend, Fortune tracked 1,400 referral visits to its subscription page from Elmer-DeWitt’s post, and another 1,000 visits to the app’s iTunes preview page. Roth says he hasn’t seen iTunes sales numbers yet.

Starting this morning, a small slice of the Apple piece will show up on Fortune.com, but that will be another teaser promoting the iPad app. If you really want to read the story and don’t want to wait–or shell out for an issue or a subscription–you’ll have another option, too: It’s now available as a $0.99 Kindle “single” on Amazon, too.

But won’t anyone who wants to read the story be able to read it for free via the tech blogs?

Well, yes. Maybe. That’s sort of the test.

Magazine employees have reached out to handful of bloggers who they think have lifted too much of Lashinsky’s story. They’re particularly sensitive about reproductions of a painstakingly created Apple org chart. (Sorry! Fixed!)

But Roth, along with Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer, assumed that parts of the story would get prominent Web play. Their bet is that most of Fortune’s audience will be interested in reading a really good Apple story, but not enough to seek out a summarized version on someone else’s site.

“I think that our readers, for the most part, aren’t necessarily going to Techmeme and reading the tech blogs”, Roth says.”A lot of them are. But not most of them. And this is the kind of thing that people will really want to read all of, and pass it along to friends.”

But then again, they’re not really sure. Hence the experiment. “None of us have any idea what works and what doesn’t work anymore.”

——-

Disclosure: I worked with Dan for a few months way back in the late 1990s, and he interviewed me when he wrote about my last employer a couple years ago. It’s a good read.

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.

Starting Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune magazines will be able to access the iPad editions via the apps, which will be able to authenticate them as subscribers. Time Inc.’s People magazine already had such an arrangement, but readers of most publications have had to pay separately for the iPad version regardless of their subscriber status.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Squires takes over the CEO role from Brian Jacobs, who founded the company nine years ago.

Akademos also announced that Kohlberg Ventures, which invested in the company three years ago, has increased its stake. It has now put a total of $5 million into the venture.

Akademos sets up “white label” bookstores that sell both physical and digital texts; it also runs textbookx, a direct-to-consumer retail site.

Squires, whose last job was the interim CEO at the Next Issue Media e-magazine joint venture, says he’ll be focused on helping the company work with open source textbooks.

As AOL CEO Tim Armstrong works to integrate his $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post into the Internet portal, one of its top advertising leaders is departing for a big job at Yahoo.

Mark Ellis will become head of the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s North American field sales, afterhttp://kara.allthingsd.com/wp-admin/my-sites.php serving in a wide variety of jobs at AOL and being a key lieutenant to global ad sales head Jeff Levick.

Previous to AOL, Ellis worked at sports marketing company IMG, at Quokka Sports, a sports Web site and at Time Inc. as publisher of Time Inc. New Media.

While there, he worked with Yahoo’s current U.S. ad sales head Wayne Powers.

While AOL portrayed the move as a well-planned reorganization in an internal memo, the departure of Ellis was a new wrinkle, as Armstrong has been contemplating how to best rejigger its key ad business after the bold acquisition of the news and opinion site run by its famous editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington.

Several sources said Armstrong found out a week ago about Yahoo’s interest in hiring Ellis, whom Yahoo had been pursing Ellis for far longer. Interestingly, he has been involved in the planning for the changes as the deal to buy the Huffington Post wraps up.

Sources said that deal is expected to close as soon as a week.

Previous to the Huffington Post situation, sources at AOL said the New York-based company has been contemplating a variety of changes, including Ellis’ role, in the ad department as its sales have continued to suffer.

Whatever the circumstances, an experienced ad sales exec like Ellis moving to a major AOL competitor is certainly a change.

Here is Levick’s staff memo on the changes in AOL’s ad unit, with the Ellis move buried low and with no mention of Yahoo (natch!):

Team–

One year ago this week, we decided to innovate the future of brand advertising for the digital world. Last night, our work was recognized by the industry in a meaningful and significant way. The race is on for the next phase of advertising on the Internet and we are in that race. We have more to do, but we’re going to do it and do it quickly.

Today, we also wanted to announce a set of changes that will allow us to expand and accelerate our ability to serve our customers on a deeper level. We now have a great suite of products to match our talented team. We also have an expanding base of consumers on some of the best brands on the Internet and that represents a very attractive proposition for our customers. The addition of The Huffington Post adds an incredibly talented team of sales people and journalists to our team and we have the ability to scale all aspects of our business.

I’m very happy to announce that over the next 90 days, we will be integrating The Huffington Post sellers into our regional teams and expanding the roles of three of our star field generals–Tim Richards, Wendy McGregor, and Tim Castelli. Wendy, Tim, and Tim will lead the sales for AOL and Huffington Post Media Group and report directly to me, moving them into a more central role in AOL’s revenue strategies and management.

Jim Norton will continue to lead the Advance Sales team but will also be taking on a new role as the VP of Product Sales, reporting into me. In this role, he will help realize the potential with Mail, AIM, Local, AOL.com and other core product solutions for National and Advance advertisers, serving as a critical ‘linchpin’ that connects our advertiser opportunities with AOL solutions. Christa Zambardino will continue to lead sales efforts for AOL.com and will report to Jim.

Don Kennedy will also report directly to me, taking our focus on the network to new levels and will continue to build out our Network Sales organization, working in close partnership with Dave Jacobs and Rob Luenberger.

Finally, Mark Ellis will be leaving the organization. I can’t thank Mark enough for all he has done for AOL and for the teams during his time here. He has been a great partner to me and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

We will continue to keep you updated on the status of the Huffington Post deal as well as any other organizational announcements. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions.

Best,

Jeff

But in the meantime, I have found the former Time Inc. CEO’s marching orders to the troops, which never got delivered.

The story: Last December, Griffin ordered up 200 double-sided desktop plaques/awards (is there a technical term for these things?) that he wanted distributed to his top executives. For whatever reason, no one actually handed them out, and they’re now sitting in storage somewhere, I’m told.

But I have been able to see one for myself, and now I can share these grainy cameraphone snapshots with you (apologies for shadows, etc). So if you’d like, you can consider them Griffin’s parting words of advice:

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who hired former Meredith magazine head Jack Griffin in August, has now let him go. “I concluded that his leadership style and approach did not mesh with Time Inc. and Time Warner,” Bewkes writes in a companywide memo.

Bewkes hasn’t announced a replacement, and says that in the interim, a troika of Time Inc executives — which notably includes Time Inc. editorial head John Huey — will run the business and report to him.

Griffin lasted less than six months on the job, so there’s going to be a lot of well-deserved scrutiny into Bewkes’ decisions to hire, then fire him so quickly: Does Bewkes get credit for getting rid of Griffin early, or penalized for bringing him aboard in the first place? Or both?

The early word from Time Warner and Time Inc. employees is that Griffin’s employees were extremely unhappy under his tenure, and that the company was facing the possibility of losing valued employees.

One example of a move that didn’t win him any fans at the tradition-bound publisher: Placing his name first on the masthead of its monthly magazines — and requiring weekly magazines, which hadn’t traditionally run mastheads, to start publishing them.

The move supposedly cost Time Inc. millions in lost ad revenue, but it’s hard to see that being a firing offense; I note it only because it was one of the first complaints I heard about Griffin after the news broke this evening.

More worrisome: One Time Inc. source notes that the company distributes annual bonuses in March, suggesting that the move was made now in order to persuade disgruntled workers from bolting in a few weeks.

Here’s the memo.

To:                   Time Inc. Colleagues

From:               Jeff Bewkes

Subject:            Jack Griffin

I regret to inform you that Jack Griffin is leaving his position as Chairman and CEO of Time Inc. Although Jack is an extremely accomplished executive, I concluded that his leadership style and approach did not mesh with Time Inc. and Time Warner.

Until a permanent successor is identified, Time Inc. will be led by an experienced interim management committee, reporting directly to me, composed of Howard Averill, Maurice Edelson and John Huey. You will be hearing from them within the next several days regarding their plans during this transitional period.

This company and its executive team have made many important advances in the last few years. Throughout, you have distinguished yourselves with professionalism and dedication to your craft, and as a result of that hard work the company’s momentum has been restored.

With our deep and talented pool of employees, I’m confident that during this transitional period Time Inc. will continue to grow and prosper, and that you will continue the brilliant work that has defined our company.

Jeff