To be honest I was never much of a Word Magazine reader. Still I am very sad that the publishers have now called it a day.

As David Hepworth said this morning; “In the nine years since the magazine launched there have been dramatic changes in the media and the music business. These changes have made it more difficult for a small independent magazine to survive and provide its staff with a living. This hasn’t been made any easier by the economic climate of the wider world.”

I do wonder however if there is an alternative business model for the magazine and that is to ape the brilliant football magazine Blizzard. Read more »

There has been a lot of talk recently about how some brands are disappointed with their level of engagement with users on Facebook. Apparently the number of people ‘liking’ brands seems to be on the wane and those that do like brands seem to have little interest in interacting with them. There are of course some spectacular exceptions, such as Cadbury Crème, Wispa, iTunes , Topshop and New Look to this rule – many of whom are in the fashion space – but it does seem that more and more people are becoming convinced that Facebook is not the magic bullet for brand marketing any more.

So why is this happening? Well firstly, it appears that Facebook users are becoming less aware of brands maybe because there are now so many on Facebook. And secondly that brands aren’t really producing content that inspires their followers. Read more »

We have reached an interesting point in the development of iPad magazines. Companies that had initially been hugely enthusiastic about the format, like Conde Nast, are having second thoughts and slowing down their adoption of the platform. Other publishers remain very cynical.

At the same time companies like Future Publishing are citing the iPad as one of the key reasons for significant growth of its digital division. Read more »

While some are writing premature obituaries about the death of blogs there are a couple of areas where blogging is especially strong at the moment and arguably has a very bright future. One is in the B2B area – you are reading a B2B blog now – the other is in blogs owned by brands.