User Generated Print Magazine
Dec 3rd, 2006 by Dan Blank
JPG magazine has an interesting business model that has finally won the approval of Michael Arrington. The concept:
“Get users to upload photos to their website, and then have the community vote on and rank photos. The winners are published in a bi-monthly print magazine and get $100 plus a free one-year subscription.”
On why Mike likes it:
“They are doing so many things right. The fact that the community decides what photos end up in each issue has resulted in a ton of activity on the website. Photographers are uploading their best work to showcase their stuff - if a photo gets picked for the magazine it’s just icing on the cake for them. Finally, every issue of the magazine is available, free, as a PDF download… The economics work well, too… the high [cover] price and advertising success means the run of 30,000 or so print magazines is profitable for them.”
The real beauty is how much the print effort creates value and community on the website. Mike’s conclusion:
“More print magazines should be doing similar things to embrace an online community instead of just copying their print content to their website.”