Dale Dougherty, the publisher of Make: Magazine did a brief interview with Publishing Executive Magazine, which included some great thoughts on how print publishers can harness the power of Web 2.0 while also playing to their own strengths.
INBOX: How can magazine publishers best capitalize on Web 2.0 for their own publications?
DOUGHERTY: One idea is to ask yourself the question: What does my audience know that I wish I knew, with “I” being either an editor or a publisher? Many people have characterized Web 2.0 as consisting of conversation in the forms of blogs and wikis that allow more people to participate. This could mean as much for a printed magazine as it does for a Web site. Ideas and stories may begin to flow from the audience, not just to the audience. You are expanding your sources at the same time you are deepening the relationship you have with your audience—again as individuals, not as an abstract demographic.
Dale is so right. Web 2.0 is actually a new way of doing something that is very close to the heart of publishing: finding, curating, and building upon the contributions of people who don’t work for you but are pursuing their own passions. The secret of success in publishing is finding these people and pouring fuel on their fire. Web 2.0 isn’t just technology; it’s attitude. If you’re a publisher who looks down on “user-generated content,” you’re probably also a follower, not a leader, since you’ll never find the great new ideas that almost always emerge from the edge. (Moving from magazines to books, an area I know much better, just remember that JK Rowling didn’t work for Scholastic! She started out just as much “user generated content” as any blog way out on the long tail.)
There’s a lot that publishers can and should do with technology, because Web 2.0 is providing many new ways of finding new talent, bringing great material to the top of what used to be called “the slush pile”, and then bringing it to market. But so much does begin just as Dale says, in deep engagement with your audience, which in almost every case is also the source of the content that you will feature.
Dale also has some great insights on the virtue of print in an increasingly online media world:
INBOX: What are publishers doing wrong when it comes to balancing print and Web initiatives?
DOUGHERTY: Even tech savvy people were getting wearied from the amount of technology that was available to them but which they could not really absorb. … I tend to think that the virtues of print are being ignored by print publishers. The new technology of the Web gets so much attention but we can do things in print that you just can’t do online—and one is hold a person’s attention for a longer period of time.That’s a virtue. If a magazine is not going to be visually interesting and stimulating—which is to say as smart as it is beautiful to look at—why should readers care to buy this print product? If you’re going to pour lots of text in columns, you might as well put it online.
Of course, Dale likes to have his cake and eat it too, so even the visual richness of the print magazine is available in a digital edition (screencast below). But it’s nothing like sitting down with that print copy — which is why we sell more copies of each quarterly issue of Make: than we do of the biggest bestsellers in computer book publishing.