disposable media

Is Monkey spanking it’s rivals?

February 14, 2007 By Dan Thornton

Online email magazine Monkey appears to be a pretty big success for UK publishers Dennis. It gets open around a million times a month, makes around £16,000 per issue, and attracts around 4000 new readers daily.

Despite an accusation that the Zoo and Nuts rival was only launched online due to cost, because Dennis couldn’t afford the multiple millions for a print launch, it seems that actually, it’s finding a slightly different audience. Quoting from the Guardian: “60% are from the ABC1 demographic group, with an average age of 27. Almost two-thirds are homeowners who appreciate a huge range of subjects rather than just “girls and gadgets”.

Case in point? Me. I’d never buy Zoo or Nuts. If I want gadget news, I’d go to a gadget blog. If I wanted naughty ladies, I believe that they are also available on the internet. And there’s a popular site which apparently has lots of videos of people hurting themselves.

But give me all that in an attractive email mag, and I’ll happily take the time to browse through it, pick out the best bits, and possibly even watch some advertising videos, and maybe even click on a link or two. It’s another example of magazines becoming arbiters of taste, rather than story creators.

I suggested a similar approach to magazines a couple of years ago, and fortuitiously, started working on Disposable Media. DM is currently on around 10,000 downloads per issue, with no marketing, advertising, paid staff etc.

Disposable Wiidia Special out now!

January 19, 2007 By Dan Thornton

The latest issue of Disposable Media is now online and ready for download.

And as a bonus to all my regular readers, you’ll be pleased to know I haven’t contributed any writing to this one. But I did attempt to sub the entire thing…..
Luckily the rest of the team have put together some great stuff, so try Disposable Wiidia (chuckle), now……

And the plan for the rest of the year is to hopefully switch to bi-monthly, with the normal mix of music, art, culture, video games, comics, film and lifestyle…

Staying creative…

January 17, 2007 By Dan Thornton

There are times when any person can struggle to be creative. If you’re of a literary bent, you get to say you have writer’s block, a luxury which isn’t normally allowed to electricians or plumbers…

“Sorry, I can’t fix your toilet today luv….got a bit of plumbers block”

The normal answer is to walk away, do something else entirely, and not to worry about it. If you force it, then it won’t be worth reading… Good advice.

You can always take some time to read something inspirational. For instance, the gapingvoid guide to being creative. The Gaping Void is always an interesting read, and the business card cartoons lighten the mood.I think creator Hugh McLeod is pretty much in the ‘A’ list of bloggers, and most web people have encountered something he’s done.

But….and I do like a nice but… I do have a slight problem/query/paradox about one of his rules of creativity concerning keeping your dayjob. While I agree it’s easier to make something valid and worthwhile if something else covers the bills, I would add the caveat that it depends on your job.

The examples of Hugh himself, running his blog and art away from the marketing day job etc works, as he obviously does a job that he can enjoy, and which can feed into his passion. Alternatively, if you work as a waiter/waitress and paint/write/act in the evenings, it’ll be relatively easy to forget about your day job once you walk out of the door.

But when you’re involved in a job like internet publishing, and you also run a blog, that’s where the balancing act becomes more difficult. If you’ve had a bad day, and seen decisions made which you don’t agree with, do you write honestly and risk getting fired? Do you keep quiet, and leave the blog empty? And with most media companies offering contracts which own your thoughts as soon as you think them, should you be blogging anyway? What happens when your day job is eating away at your net enthusiasm?

For the record, and for the moment, I’m committed to blogging. I’m going to take the step of declaring that I won’t be refering to the specifics of my day job, but that I may post lessons I’ve learned from what happens. I’ll happily post in more detail about projects like Disposable Media (New issue should be online tonight), as they’re in my personal space, and I’m fully aware of everything that goes into the decisions made for that project. And, at the moment, the idea of reinforcing my positivity is rather attractive, as I do have a lot of options to explore at the moment.