![]() ![]() Best of luck to Pocket and their ancillary titles. ![]() AJ, Surfer’s Journal, Rouleur and the odd arty title like Monster’s Children and Kinfolk are showing a way forward that is far more appealing than trad media. Also, hasn’t Outside been “crying poor” and asking for reader donations to finance its online content? Another question, more from a reader’s perspective, is would Outside change to a high-end quarterly, let’s say, that would look and feel (ahem…) like AJ? As a self-admitted magazine junkie, it pains me that there is still a shit-ton of, well, crappy publications out there that want $9 per issue. Speaking of waves, if they could only pry the Surfer name away from David Pecker (why is AMI being so stingy, here?). Good for Pocket Media a plucky little brand making some big waves. Though Outside still devolves into ‘listicle’ type gear stores, they also have best in class writers like Alex Hutchinson and others. (I came to this story via AJ’s email channel which, while unsexy, offers great engagement because a) it’s opt-in and b) you’re selling information and entertainment and stoke. (Inertia is not bad), and then it’s what my friends share on Twitter or FB. I’ve been very happy with their on-line shift – AJ and Outside (and to an extent SNEWS) are my three go-tos. Say what you will, but for many freelancers a story in the feature well at Outside can be the stepping stone to bigger prey at The New Yorker, NYT Magazine and elsewhere. Larry’s had a long, distinguished run as a magazine publisher. It’s also a tough world for magazine lovers who value independent publications, with another biggie entering another big media brand tent. Subscription and reader support are the only real ways forward, unless you can capture the vast majority of ad revenue by setting up media conglomerates that can try to monopolize traffic, while also gathering a big subscriber base for a swath of digital content. It’s a tough world out there for independent media these days, with ad revenue shrinking. In theory, for example, one could log-in to Outside’s web portal, then read articles in Backpacker, Beta, or Outside. The plan is to allow subscribers to access all of Outside’s (again, the media group) titles with one sign-on process, and, potentially, subscription rate. Outside, the newly named media group, not the magazine, also announced this week they’d raised $150 million in funding from Sequoia Heritage, an arm of Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital firms, and an early investor in companies like AirBnb and DoorDash. ![]() Nobody at Outside Magazine is expected to be laid off in the transaction. Our industry has weathered all kinds of challenges over four decades, including recessions, the digital explosion and now the pandemic.”īurke is reportedly stepping down from any work at all with the magazine, to focus on writing his memoirs. “We have been fortunate to stay independent and profitable for all of these years and that speaks volumes for the talented team that built Outside into an iconic brand. “The timing was right for a number of reasons,” Burke, 78, wrote in an email to The New Mexican. ![]()
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