[Actionchix] ChixBits Format

[Beth Skwarecki]

On Mon, Oct 15, 2007 at 08:48:47AM -0700, Cristina Ingram wrote:
> <design team hat on and twirling around with the thought processes>
> 
> I agree with the update issue.  I think that changing content with previews
> and other goodies will keep people coming back till the issue for that
> quarter is done.  I am thinking that regular news and updates on technology,
> people, etc. will keep the magazine in peoples minds.  Also offering update
> alerts to be emailed to those who subscribe to this feature, but I am unsure
> if this feature is available with Drupal (I need to RTFM) or if we could do
> a script.

I like this idea a lot - short/newsy items on a regular basis (say, blog
post length) and perhaps the best or most current of them will be included
in each quarter's issue. I also agree with Isabelle's suggestion for RSS for
the little things and email for issue releases. I think it would be fine to
send the email manually if that's easiest, since there would only be 4 per
year.

Two magazines that have a similar practice:

Knitty.com publishes their web magazine quarterly, and sends an email to
their low-traffic announcement list (so, 4 emails per year) when the issue
is up. Actually, make that 8 emails: each issue has some "surprise" content
that comes out while they're working on the next one. (Because knitting
projects take so long to complete, a quarterly issue will actually be used
and discussed among readers for a couple of months.)

Bitch Magazine is quarterly on dead trees, and their idea (not implemented
in practice, but I think it's a great idea) is that short "love it/shove it"
pieces would appear on the website year-round; the website shares some of
these pieces with the "love it/shove it" section in the printed magazine.

-beth


-- 
Beth Skwarecki
http://bethskwarecki.com
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