Daniel Libeskind on the Fire at the Berlin Philharmonie

Famed architect Daniel Libeskind answered questions from the audience at an appearance today at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club of California. One question was whether the building of the Berlin Philharmonie (Berlin Philharmonic) should retain its original, 1960's modernist look in any reconstruction. Libeskind says it should, in a short response.

Arianna Huffington on Politics and the Media

More Huffington, this time on one of her favorite (or least favorite?) topics: The role the media plays in setting or warping the political dialogue in this country.
She also has a few nice things to say about Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, I only got a bit of that part in this tape (too slow on the "on" button), but you can read her blog on the topic here.

Arianna Huffington on Why the GOP Is in Dire Straits

Huffington Post Editor Arianna Huffington spoke today at The Commonwealth Club of California. As part of her tour for her latest book (Right Is Wrong), she was making her case that the far right has taken over the Republican Party and driven it over a cliff.
Watch the video clip. More to come.

California and Marriage

The California state supreme court ruled today that same-sex marriage is permitted under the state's constitution. I'll have more to add later, but for now, I'll just say that this is a super day.

And thanks to SF Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is the troublemaker who started this whole thing. Out of such troublemakers come heroes.

Bankruptcy at Starlog, Fangoria owner

Bloomberg news and other sources report that Creative Group, the publisher of Starlog and Fangoria magazines as well as the producer of animation and other related businesses, filed for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors earlier this year. (On the Bloomberg link, the story is about halfway down the page.) In short, it declared bankruptcy. I'm not able to figure out if the cause of Creative's financial troubles was its small magazine division or if it was the various video production and other parts of the company.

Though this news admittedly set off a spate of professional fantasizing by me ("I could round up investors and buy Starlog/Fangoria from Creative! Invest in rebuilding the Starlog brand and implement all of my digital-and-print publishing and marketing plans!"), more realistically, it will follow the pattern that is expected when the core business that's in trouble is nonetheless still valuable: it will be picked up by its creditors at a bargain price, and they'll sell or just close what's a total money hole, rebuild and then sell anything that looks like it has strong upside potential, and sell immediately anything that's got value in it but not a lot of upside. Bloomberg notes that the creditors are already wrangling over that, and I just hope it's not going to take a big toll on the staff or the brands themselves.

If Starlog and Fangoria get someone who can continue to invest in Fango's multi-platform development and start to invest in Starlog's platforms (there are many inexpensive or even free things they could be doing that would help tie their audience to them, such as short video blogs by the editors, video interview excerpts, text blogs by editors and other contributors, weekly e-mail newsletter, etc.), then they can reap a big profit from a very respected and venerable brand name. They can also finally begin to really take on the market threat: The British publishers, who appear to be able to put out magazines that are bigger in every way (more pages, larger page dimensions, higher prices) and who are expanding their market presence, all while Starlog has suffered over the past 7 years. It's been even worse for Starlog's competition; in recent years, Cinefantastique (redubbed CFQ) ceased publication, as did Dreamwatch and Cinescape.

So let's hope they get an investor/owner who both wants to make money and who's smart enough to mine what value is already there – built up over more than 30 years of continuous publishing and market dominance – and to know how to expand the brand to take on the competition of today. Hello, investors?

Torched-Earth Policy

As I'm working at my desk, watching an internet video feed of the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco (see photo, a screen capture of the feed, which is from the local CBS affiliate).

But some thoughts:

Who on earth ever thought of having this torch relay come through San Francisco? If there was one city (outside of Tibet, of course) that was likely to have a critical mass of protestors, it was obviously going to be San Francisco.

So, we have China facing public condemnation for its actions in Tibet. We have pro-Tibetan supporters (generally people who would never support a theocracy, except for Tibet's). We have pro-Chinese supporters who actually want to see the torch relay. We have young people who are looking forward to do their part in cultural ceremonies at the end-point of the torch relay. We have China showing just how tone-deaf it is by also declaring that the torch relay will go through Tibet itself.

Yes, a mess. It's political and moral chickens coming home to roost for China. It's also a chance for the professional protestor cadre in San Francisco to express their moral outrage. And it's going to change nothing.

The Wal-Mart 1,000

Below is an editorial I wrote in the March 2008 issue of The Commonwealth magazine, in which I describe how I think the magazine industry will – or at least should – evolve. What I don't go into is the other part of this solution: such drastically reduced printing/distribution costs enables even consumer magazines to adopt some controlled-circulation concepts from the business-to-business magazine publishing world, and that completes the circle of the new business model.

EDITOR'S NOTE
The Wal-Mart 1,000
By John Zipperer, Editorial Director, The Commonwealth

Here's one big business list that magazine publishers don't want to be on: The list of 1,000 magazine titles that retail giant Wal-Mart announced in January it has decided to stop selling in its stores. That number is dismaying, because, as the New York Post noted, Wal-Mart "is believed to be responsible for generating more than 20 percent of all retail magazine sales in the U.S."

One publisher recently said that he's lost 50 percent of his newsstand outlets each year for the past few years. We seem to be in a very brutal era of shakeout in the periodicals business, where investors, distributors and retailers are all assuming that print is dead and online media is king. I think publishers – and the investors who back them – are putting the cart before the horse. There are things that work better online than in print, such as multimedia, breaking news and (relatively useless) instant opinion posts. But there is still plenty of money to be made in print magazines; publishers just need to realize they are publishers and not printers. Many magazines, including The Commonwealth, are now produced in digital versions that include the entire contents of the print version and are viewed online or downloaded to a local printer. Meanwhile, they continue to be produced in paper versions. That's because the shape and form of a magazine is perfect for performing the function of delivering information and design to a reader. You can read it sitting up, standing, walking (though I wouldn't recommend that) or lying down. Even the thinnest of digital viewers provides a different reading experience – and magazines don't generally get warmer the longer you use them.

So magazines like this one still have a great mission. The challenge is getting around the ever-increasing costs of paper, printing and mailing. What will save us all, I believe, is continued – and, I hope, accelerated – development of home printer technology that will let you, at home, print out a magazine that has just as good resolution, paper quality and binding as a magazine that you purchased at a store.

Home printers have been improving by leaps and bounds over the years, and when they get good enough, then it will be a whole new economic ballgame. You won't have to get a grainy printout of your copy of The Economist or Sports Illustrated; it'll look just as good as what you buy today. And publishers will save a lot on the printing, paper and postage costs that are some of the biggest components of their budgets.

Hmm, wouldn't it be great if there just happened to be some world-class printer manufacturers in the Bay Area who could fuel this next evolutionary step of the publishing industry?

Party Animal

Arthur C. Clarke, R.I.P.

The news just broke that Arthur C. Clarke has passed away at the age of 90. Clarke came up with the idea for the geosynchronous satellite, wrote tons of books (most famous for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End). He was also an outspoken champion of science and rationalist thought.

You might want to check out his Clarke Foundation, which he set up to spread his ideas.

And read the Clarke remembrance by Kerry O'Quinn, an old friend of Clarke's.

The Shadow of Charlie the Cat