• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 10, 2011

Meredith Launches Social, Group Discount Network

Riding the wave of interest in group discount services like Groupon, Meredith Corp. is launching a new social network offering group discount deals on the Web site of Parents magazine. The new Parents.com social and group discount network, created in partnership with Group Commerce Inc., is available to anyone who subscribes to a Meredith publication -- giving it a potential audience and customer base of 75 million American women.

Group discount deals will be provided for the network by a new service for vendors called the "Premium Partner Program" -- providing key advertisers with broad exposure and a new way to reach large numbers of Meredith's most engaged readers.

Meredith National Media Group Executive Vice President Liz Schimel stated: "Meredith is committed to expanding and strengthening our relationships with our subscriber community by using new Internet platforms to offer them unique value propositions. Social commerce is an exploding platform, one Meredith is uniquely positioned to leverage." Group Commerce Inc. chairman David Rosenblatt stated: "Meredith's significant subscriber base will realize significant value from this new network through great buying discounts and an enhanced social buying experience."

Hearst Exec Sees 30% of Circ from Tablets

Before long, digital editions of magazines delivered to tablet computers could be contributing almost one-third of total circulation, according to Hearst Corp. President David Carey, who made the prediction at the Bloomberg Media Summit this week. Carey isn't the first magazine executive to see tablets and mobile devices making a big contribution to the bottom line. In November, Conde Nast's managing director for the U.K., Nicholas Coleridge, predicted that 15 years from now, "I would expect 70% of our sales to come from print and 30%, or even 40%, to come from products such as the iPad." In the U.S. market, the Next Issue Media consortium, of which Conde Nast is a member, projects online subscription revenues for newspapers and magazines will rise to $3 billion by 2014 -- with perhaps half going to magazine publishers.

Newsweek Gets New Look

As expected, Newsweek has been redesigned -- yet again -- following its merger with The Daily Beast, which put beast boss Tina Brown in the top spot at the beleaguered news magazine. According to Folio:, the revamped magazine includes new editorial content -- a new column called "C-Suite" from Joanne Lipman -- as well as comprehensive visual redesign led by creative director Dirk Barnett. In an interview with Folio:, Barnett said photojournalism will be a main focus of the redesigned magazine, as evidenced by a regular opening spread called the News Gallery. This effectively reverses a previous redesign, enacted in May 2009, which did away with photo-intensive reporting in favor of slimmed-down, minimalist articles -- a move widely seen at the time as aping Time, which adopted a spare layout with fewer images.

Nylon Mobile Edition Gets Makeover

The mobile edition of Nylon has received a technical update and design makeover from the Thumb Media Group, which produces it. On the technical side, TMG provided Nylon with a new operating platform; on the format side, the mobile edition will now include integrated ad campaigns for major brands. Last month, Nylon announced it would begin selling digital subscriptions through Apple's App Store, following Apple's unveiling of a new subscription sales model for digital publishers.