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Jeanniey Mullen

Newsweek Ushers in the Era of Pure Publishing

  |  January 4, 2013   |  Comments

It was billed as #thelastprintissue. That was Newsweek's cover in late December. The announcement came across as a mix of optimism and finality. Look at the last print issue of Newsweek and it seems like a New Orleans funeral. We were happy, we were sad, we played great music, and we now see something else on the horizon.

I found Newsweek's "passing" fascinating. It might surprise you to hear this from a digital publishing evangelist, but I do believe that print and digital will live side-by-side. It's never the death of one and the new life of another. Just as we called Internet media new media and now we call it all media, I believe at some point very soon publishing will be called publishing. It will no longer be divided into digital publishing and print publishing. It's publishing. Content. I find it much more interesting. It's the intersection of future and past.

What I observed with the Newsweek migration was a sense that this is the beginning rather than the end. I'm not sure that the scale involved for magazines like Newsweek is long for the future. But I look at all the large-scale magazines and I see the success that they are having and I have to believe that they have great audiences and great content. It meets at content.

What tips the balance? The balance will be tipped by brands. Brands will be the ones to decide that their lasting image in the print magazine is worth their focus and money. Brands will also decide that the flexibility and agility of digital publishing is worth their focus.

The other tipping point is content itself. The digital publishing platform very simply allows for niche interests at low overhead. We're seeing more interesting content published and more specific niche-oriented interest addressed than ever before. I would argue that this is the golden age of publishing. Newsweek bye-bye. Daily Beast, hello. But understand that it is publishing and content. Discovery of that content that will drive this business. The content business. The publishing business.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeanniey Mullen, a recognized women-in-business and tech, is known for her entrepreneurial style and her ability to build, shape, and grow brands into well-known dominant, successful entities. Jeanniey is a pioneer in email, mobile, and digital marketing; publishing; and brand-building. She now leads her own agency, YellowBean LLC, focused on assisting companies of all sizes with driving innovation and growth. Most recently, Jeanniey was the Global EVP, CMO, and subsequently Chief Growth Officer for Zinio, where she worked to define and implement strategies creating explosive growth through strategic partnerships with publishers, technology companies, brands, and consumers during her five-year tenure. Jeanniey has authored and contributed to multiple books, blogs, and magazine articles. She is a regular columnist for ClickZ, a blogger for Huffington Post, and a frequent keynote speaker. A serial networker, in 2005 Jeanniey founded the Email Experience Council, which was sold to the Direct Marketing Association in 2008. She sits on the Advisory Board for IndieFlix, and on the International Executive Council of the Internet Marketing Association. Jeanniey is recognized as both a Top CMO and Top Author on Twitter, and was most recently featured as Mover and Shaker by the Professional Woman's Magazine, and a featured Woman in Technology by The Legacy Series Magazine.

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