A few more days and Lucire, the fashion magazine that was once web-only, will launch in Romania as a print edition. I think—though I would like to know for sure—that it's the first time someone's branched off a printed fashion magazine into a second country within a few months of launching it in the first.
   When asked how I did it—even though for me it's a case of counting chickens—I tell folks that I ignored the advice of the experts. Not so much the experts here, but the traditional ones in media (because frankly, I only know of two other people who have done the web-to-print transition), finance (anyone want to look back at Slater Walker, the 1980s, or for that matter the 1990s?) and even magazine publishing (if the model works for online, why can it not work for print?).
   I don't know if I am right. To be fair, no one does. Turning a web site into a print magazine is a new thing. Give it a few more years and everyone will be writing books on how to manage the transition and create business cases ex post facto. But for now, I'm hoping that the lessons of Beyond Branding apply, and that I haven't read consumers wrong in two countries. We shall see.

Further thoughts at: http://www.jyanet.com/cap/2005/0507ob0.shtml.

posted by Jack Yan, 6:32 AM  permalink