idiomag

idiomag has been chosen as one of several top UK startups to participate in a UKTI-sponsored “Digital Mission” to NYC in September. There are some great companies going, including our friends at Huddle, and some really interesting media startups.

We will be at the Web 2.0 Expo as well as meeting lots of potential partners throughout the week. Do let us know if you are in the vicinity and would like to meet up.

A month or two ago, I found myself on stage at Oxford’s Carling Academy, giving away an award in the Top of the Ox awards gig. It was a great evening, with 4 support acts, three main acts, and an awards ceremony thrown in. The artists were very diverse, encompassing slightly random, but likeable, electronica, all the way through piano pop, funk rock, and metal. It was also great to see a range of experience on show, with some bands clearly having a very well-worked set, and others (most remarkably, Sarah Warne, who won the competition) having hardly never performed live before! My personal favourites during the evening were Stornaway, Dan Hammersley, and Helium Soul. And everyone seemed to enjoy our idiomag balloons. Or was it just the helium they were enjoying…

Many thanks to the Top of the Ox team for getting us involved. Within idiomag, there are several reviews of bands who competed in the last battle of the bands competition - so in case you haven’t seen them, here are some links:

Sarah Warne
Helium Soul
John Miller
Daniel Hammersley

The web design tyrannosaur, .net magazine, who have featured us on no less than 3 occasions, are holding their annual Awards. So please click here and vote for “www.idiomag.com” in the following categories:

Best New Site
Web App of the Year
Interactive Award
Innovation Award

If you are feeling suitably generous and want to go the extra mile, you could also vote for “www.thrusites.com” as the best Design Agency of the year. They have done a great job helping idiomag develop.

Now relax with that warm fuzzy feeling, knowing you have helped us. Thanks!

We’ve been keeping our heads down for the last month - lots of stuff happening though. You can now see the new homepage at http//www.idiomag.com - very sexy. There’s lots more behind it which will be announced next week.

Anyway, so back to the post. We are in the running for a People’s Choice Award at the Digital Music Awards. We’d very much appreciate your vote! Just click on the image below to do it. Easy!

Nikki Preston has written an interesting article over at mad.co.uk, questioning whether idiomag should be called a “magazine”. As she points out, a magazine is a “periodical publication containing articles and illustrations” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. And although idiomag publishes new articles periodically (idiomag’s update period is every 3 hours), some might believe that the title of “magazine” should be reserved only for weekly or monthly publications.

The lines have become blurred by the proliferation of online publications, and as Arif mentions, most people nowadays are happy to leave the definition of ‘magazine’ pretty open.  Following Guy Consterdine’s assertion that when discussing magazines, one must separate content and form, I have made our case.

Content:

idiomag might be regularly updated – one of the key advantages of being online – but the content it offers could be described as ‘magazine’ content. By this I mean that it is not ‘newsy’ content, which must be immediately consumed. Instead, idiomag is designed to be consumed in a ‘sit-back’ manner, without being particularly time-sensitive. To this end, each reader’s content stays in their magazine for 30 days – so they can choose when to read it.

Form:

We have described idiomag as using a “virtual magazine format”, and this format does set us apart from most online publications. The content structure and reading style is primarily linear (like a magazine), not hierarchical (like most websites), the interface is engaging (like a magazine) rather than text-based (like many websites), and in addition, the features such as the page-turn and the archive function (which dog-ears a page to indicate that you might wish to read it later) all bear a striking resemblance to a print magazine.

Even the advertising in idiomag (when it comes) will be reminiscent of print magazines - i.e. large, glossy formats that sell a brand experience (like most glossy magazine advertising), rather than a product (like most banner adverts online).

Anyway, that’s my tuppence worth. I’d be interested in hearing your opinions!

The Register/Tech Digest have listed idiomag on a run-down of UK startups. We are alongside some great companies, including last.fm and DropSend.

The list is very diverse, with some really interesting companies being mentioned. It is great to see that the UK startup scene is alive and kicking.

Recently, the Editor of Precision Marketing asked the following question:

“Is digital marketing brand building or response generating? The future of the digital marketing model is currently up for grabs as competing agency types look to leverage their skills in online channels. So is online advertising, e-mail and the Web better suited to creating awareness of a brand or can it be used to drive response instead?”

I have sent my response, but I thought I would share it here as well…

It sounds very ‘Marketing 101’, but we all know that a campaign’s purpose must be 1) clearly defined and 2) used as a guide for the major advertising decisions – such as the choice of media type, channel, creative, and purchase size. All too often, online gets separated from other media types, because of a lack of understanding about what it can deliver, and its lack of a long track record. Asking if online is better suited to brand building or direct response, underestimates what it offers, and places the medium in a box into which it doesn’t easily (or effectively) fit. The real issue is “how can the different types of digital marketing support your campaign’s purpose” – whether that is raising brand profile or stimulating immediate action. To clarify the scope of digital marketing, the main methods it encompasses include search, banner, contextual, syndicated content, microsite, and community and email marketing.

Although digital marketing has elements that are similar to other media, online advertisements cannot be treated in the same way as buying the inventory of a print magazine, and email marketing cannot be considered as fully comparable to direct marketing. Firstly, online holds one significant advantage – customisability of campaigns. The minimum efficient order size for the print and broadcast media usually makes it cost-prohibitive to effectively target by context, interest, personality, or habits. These factors form and describe each individual in a far better way than solely their age, location, or job. Secondly, online allows a depth of interaction that is far beyond offline media. By creating engaging advertisements, readers become users, and the interaction with potential customers builds the memorability of the advert and also provides a multitude of direct response possibilities.

The metrics that I see (from Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms and DoubleClick’s Ad Serving Trend Reports) seem to clearly state the following: Large format rich-media adverts achieve higher brand awareness, favourability and message association than smaller static adverts, and rich-media adverts perform better than static ones in terms of click-through rates. Marketers generally seem to be very buoyant about the effectiveness of online channels, with the global online advertising spend set to rise 24% to $14.5 billion in 2007 (Merrill Lynch). And in my experience the direct response method of email marketing is very successful for achieving immediate action, with response rates around 3-5% and the low cost per delivery almost always providing a good ROI. So again, the issue for marketers is to find the best way of using digital marketing, rather than misunderstanding its many forms and purposes.

As online publishers and agencies start to offer greater capabilities to advertisers, building on the key strengths of digital marketing, customisability and interactivity, the delivery mechanism swings from push to pull, and from intrusive to interesting. And as the formats and creatives become increasingly engaging, it is vital that the digital marketing industry benefits from the discipline of direct marketers, as more solid metrics and ROI proofs are developed. I believe that as agencies get accustomed to the unique benefits of each online channel, the medium will be recognised as being integral to any campaign, whether the purpose is brand-building or direct response.

I just came across a great article by Olivia Hemmings, a post-graduate at Cardiff University. Entitled “Mags online: It’s getting personal“, Olivia explains that the public has a short attention span online and yet is demanding ever more quality content. She then summarises the movement towards personalised online publishing by the large publishing houses, in order to try and meet this demand.

The article contrasts what idiomag is doing with what IPC Media is trying to build into NME: myNME, a feature for registered users of NME.com, asks users for their favourite bands and then fills the myNME page with relevant content. The ‘personalisation’ system seems to be quite simple, just displaying the most recent articles that include the user’s favourite bands name as a keyword. Therefore it doesn’t contain the learning ability of idiomag, or the discovery aspect (where content is suggested based on specific genre interests rather than just band names). However, it certainly is a great step in the right direction.

The article contains a good quote about idiomag from Kim Hollamby, head of electronic media at IPC Media:

“I like the idea (of Idio); IPC is building this technology at the moment, although there’s no business plan for it yet. Magazines work because they have a focus, but I’m aware that our readers have mixed interests. In essence I think this concept could take over but ultimately that will be dictated by the user.”

Although I am admittedly biased, I believe that the true innovation in this area will have to come from startups like idiomag - simply because we don’t have to worry about continuing to please millions of existing readers, whilst coordinating the integrated development of a myriad of leading national titles. In the same way that TV production/distribution companies stood seemingly powerless whilst YouTube advanced into their domain, many digital publishing startups have been moving into the glossy magazine domain - the best of which are innovating in at least one area, whether it be personalisation, community, interactivity or media blend.

I have been told that idiomag was mentioned in .net magazine, in one of their most recent editions… which is nice.

Apparently they gave us a 69% chance of success. Hmm - probably about right!

IDIO LAUNCHES PERSONALISED DIGITAL MAGAZINE  

idiomag to provide readers and advertisers with next generation content personalisation and targeting