Mag Editors Ponder Web Strategies

Food & Wine homepage Find the story that you'd "never dare do in print." That's one tactic for developing popular Web content, according to Travel + Leisure Deputy Editor Laura Begley, who said the publication's Internet-only story on the "scariest airport runways" became a big hit.

Speaking at a recent Mediabistro panel of food and travel magazine editors, Begley's tale of controversial content was seconded by Peter Frank, editor in chief of concierge.com.

The site, which mixes Conde Nast Traveler articles with 90% original content, featured a Web-only story on "The World's Creepiest Places" that garnered an impressive page-view count of almost 7 million for one day last October, said Frank.

Concierge is among those publications that are moving into user-generated content, with a new "Member Posts and Reviews" functionality. National Geographic Adventure's Web site also features consumer content, but Editor in Chief John Rasmus noted that "user-generated photography is usually better than user- generated text."

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At Food & Wine, editors have found the Web a great place to develop content based on their "passions," according to Editor in Chief Dana Cowin. For example, NFL fans developed a series about football and food--with chefs commenting on their favorite teams and a pairing of pork recipes with each of the 32 NFL teams.

Cowin and other panelists expressed concern about developing extra features for the Web without short-changing print-only readers. After all, the "greatest revenue generator is still the [print] magazine," noted Michael Boodro, editor in chief of Martha Stewart Living.

One Web element that editors said they found useful for developing both print and online content is the search query. Begley has found that users' travel queries vary month-to-month. "If there are lots of Maine searches, then it's time to do a Maine story," she said.

But Boodro doesn't believe that monitoring current reader interests is always the route to optimum content: "You have to give people what they don't know they want yet."

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