Monetizing Online Magazines

The explosion of creative communities in the past ten years with refined versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash have proliferated across the internet. There has been a lot of solid creative works from artists young and old exploring the powers of art technology available in their home. Online magazines, especially those in the action sports industry and fashion sectors have exhibted impressive photography and design from hundreds of new artists per day. The collective man hours put into some of these projects is immense forcing many editors, graphic designers and writers tons of work at little pay.
[Skimboarder online Magazine. Dave Levin's stab at an online collection of photography, writing and design for one of the most obscure and insanely sick sports ever.]

The attempt to monetize these creative ventures is often a challenge. With more websites and online publications selling advertising than ever, and sites where creative content is uploaded by users and distributed for free, leads to fewer advertising dollars available to these online magazines everday. Trying to maintain a digital magazine when, there is more and more demand for content because the internet has stretched talent across a huge spectrum, while there is a dispersion of advertising revnue and hence less money to find that content. Dave Levin, creator and editor of Skimboarder.com faces another problem, his sport is such a niche activity that he only gets 10,000 views per month. To help change the dynamics of his site Levin says, "I'm developing a community based website; testing out its functionality for skimboarder.com." This site could be compared to NewSchoolers.com a successful freestyle skiing community that has used usernames, forums, media uploading and editorial stories to create a teeming internet info village. With these types of sites, monetizing is more lucrative because users frequently return and you can track user logins and activity and then vend that activity to advertisers.
[HoneyEatYourSalad.org a completely free and advertising void design and photography mag.]

Other truly dedicated magazine teams on the Internet publish advertising free magazines that are a testament to the creative spirit. Most of these magazines are built with royalty free submissions from artists all over the world. Magazines like HoneyEatYourSalad.org epitomize how easy and simple the Internet has made publishing e-zines. The magazine flash engine is really cool.

[The work of Emilie Bjork from HEYS.org]

Net Nuetrality, Is It a Real Issue?

Net Nuetrality is an issue that I have heard raised on 3 or 4 occasions since I remember becoming a computer user. It breaks down to simply, whether Internet Service Providers or, ISPs, can restrict the bandwith and loading speeds of certain websites in order to facilitate more "legitamate" internet ventures. If the illegal internet activity such as downloading peer to peer Mp3s or Torrent movie files is restricting the legal internet commerce of renting movies or shopping for books, then ISPs should be allowed to hamper the network resources in relation to these illicit activities.


[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's new energy efficient data centers]

This sounds like a sensible idea to some advocates, but there is a looming threat with any legislation that allows companies to control the availability of a supported website over my independent peer's. The idea of such a restricted network is a chilling thought for any internet user. The success of independent speech and start up company triumph is what has given me hope in this truly free medium since its development just 12 short years ago. I don't care whether activities are illegal or not, the status of the internet as completely unrestrained by the ISPs is crucial to the health of the public sphere, and any attempt to moderate that will be devastating. ISPs should merely provide me access, to the most amazingly diverse, massive and captivating information network our species has ever created.


[ISP Time Warner's HQ in New York City]

The Imaginary Foundation

The Imaginary Foundation's roots are mysterious. Their About section is an obtuse discreption of their nature as a Swiss based think tank that bases their work on the Dadaist movement from the 1920s. A "small clandestine" team of designers and intellectuals are apparently headed by a wise and knowledgeable figure head simply called the "Director". I have read that this "Director" is the son of the creator of the Dadaist Movement. The Dadaist movement primarily involved visual arts, literature, theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals. Passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture filled their publications. The movement influenced later styles, Avant-garde and Downtown music movements, and groups including Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme, Pop Art and Fluxus.



The Imaginary Foundation conducts its business from San Francisco however, which leads me to believe their About section and manifesto may be simply a back story explaining the companies anonymity and visual ideologies, developed by a much less sensational group. This speculation is simply that, a unreferenced hypothesis to what I think the Imaginary Foundation might really be. Although they claim to maintain anonymity and concentrate on producing their visual messages, I feel that if the staff behind Imaginary Foundation was as elite and sophistcated as their description suggests, I would be able to find news and info beyond bloggers simply commenting on their shirts.



Regardless of Imaginary's staff or its roots, they certainly know how to develop phenomenally positive, inspiring and colorful fabric and art prints. Many of their pieces are parallel to the Dadaist ideals that they pledge commitment to, with both vibrant and distressed tributes to higher thought, art processes and creative realms. Much of their work also pulls from surreal and post modernist ideals.



Check out Imaginary Foundation on the web @ imaginaryfoundation.com

Wikipedia Chaperones

From day one of college, I have heard extensive and continuos negativity and dismissal of Wikipedia as an information source. It has been tough to gauge to what extent teacher's and some opinionated friends, roommates and acquaintances discredit the website. It is not something to cite as an academic reference, THIS has been made clear. But with the frustration in finding general information with google searches in the past, Wikipedia is a breath of fresh air. It offers consistent, informative and concise write ups of any topic you can possibly think of. Articles are riddled with hyperlinks, offering an unrestrained network of information that can result in multi hour curiosity exploration sessions that expand both the creative and intellectual tendrils of your brain.



When I ask Wikipedia haters to explain why they are so disgruntled, they usually respond something like, "Any random sketch ball can go in there and add entries." My response to that usually is, "that sounds like unrestrained freedom of the public sphere to me." Exactly something that we need more of.

But in all reality I know that Wikipedia does not have true, unrestrained freedom of the public sphere, because if it did, Wikipedia would be unusable. It would be riddled with inaccuracies, cluttered with shameless advertising entries and ravaged by formatting incompetence and redundant inconsistencies that come from multiple authoring of single entries. Wikipedia is instead held in shape by a small oligarchy of top contributors that have created much of Wikipedia's entries and are responsible for making sure it stays clean and relevant. This is what gives Wikipedia its credibility, a vital ingredient in a successful information website in this day and age.

Some might consider this elite group of Wikipedia gurus an injustice to the Wikipedia public sphere appeal. However, these hundred or so individuals were not selected by a government agency or corporate exec board, they were simply granted this power for their frequent use and Wikipedia proficiency. In a media landscape dominated by corporate cop outs, infotainment brain drain and pandering to advertiser agendas, this uncommercial model for moderator delegation is monumental. Another valuable feature of Wikipedia is that if one of these top elites sees an entry that has problems, they will let the entry stand, and publish warnings with explanations at the top of the page. Often times this is either, lack of citation notices, "some experts say" generalizations, and bias warnings. The warnings encourage users to submit their corrections to the problems.

I can understand the position to leave Wikipedia out of scholarly bibliographies, but any other discontent is completely unjustified. For a democratic, user regulated information hub, that is free, easy, quick and advertiser free, Wikipedia is second to non. This masterpiece in the latest development of democratic internet communication power will be a corner stone for the future development of credible, reliable, legitimate information networks.



Many of the thoughts that I have just written, were stemmed from reading an article by Chris Wilson on these elite "chaperones" of the Web 2.0 world. Follow up by reading his indepth article.

Jiberish 08 Media K!t

I just finished the Jiberish Media Kit that will be sent out to retail locations all across the globe accompanied by their 08/09 line sheet which is very sick as well. Matt Yerman, and Chris Fry of Denver's Design Syndicate the400 straight killed it on the line this year. I squeaked one in there super sketchy but it worked out in the end.










The Jiberish Staff has really been stepping things up with new over seas production connections, courting approval for a formidable business credit line and a continued "Anything Possible" excited attitude about growing their company in the fierce and challenging textile and garment industry.