Gigabiting

image via the Urban Craft Center

The blogosphere seems downright sedate when you see what’s going on with zines.

For the uninitiated, a zine is a small circulation, independently produced publication. It can be a hand-drawn masterpiece or a crudely photocopied manifesto. The time and materials needed are seldom matched by sales revenue, but profit is rarely the goal of these labors of love. 1,000 copies at $3.00 apiece would be a pretty big deal to most zine publishers. Read entire article.

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It’s tough out there in the 21st century. What’s a magazine to do? The internet is running circles around print. And greeting cards? How can they compete against e-cards with their music and animation?

Welcome to the world of sensory marketing.

For years perfume and cologne companies have been using scented strips to introducing customers to their fragrances. Scratch-and-sniff advertising had a burst of popularity in the late 1970′s. Now peel-and-lick lickvertising is having its moment. Read entire article.

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Forget about the 100-mile diet. How about the 100-yard diet?

Sunset Magazine has taken local foods to a whole new level with its One-Block Diet. With a long history of expertise in cooking, gardening, and DIY, and utilizing just the open space on their Menlo Park, California campus, the magazine staff is attempting to grow, cultivate, brew, ferment, breed, and distill everything needed for a complete diet. Read entire article.

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Everything he ate

Back in 2004 it was a novel concept. Tucker Shaw snapped a photo before taking a bite of every single meal for a full year and published the collection as Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth.

The book fascinated on a number of levels. We gawked at Shaw’s love affair with the dizzying array of dining options in his hometown of New York. We were charmed by the inside joke of his nearly nightly bowl of cold cereal. It was quirky and tedious and funny and repetitive, and it challenged you to put it down before you looked up what he ate on your birthday that year. Read entire article.

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Time Magazine’s annual roundup of the world’s most influential leaders, thinkers, heroes, and artists hits newsstands this week, and this year the list includes four individuals from the food sector whose ideas and talent transform the world we live in. Read entire article.

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The Wall Street Journal has one. And the New York Times. Playboy Magazine too.

What’s a news organization to do?

Newspapers and magazines have turned to selling wine as a new way of generating revenue from readers. There’s nothing new about the business model. Classified ads were the traditional way for publishers to take advantage of the communities they created. With subscriptions dwindling and the advent of free Craigslist classifieds, a diverse group of publishers has applied the same principles to wine clubs. Read entire article.