Dennis is about to launch its second e-zine for men
By Heidi Dawley Feb 20, 2008
When laddy shop Dennis Publishing launched a new kind of magazine 18 months ago, an e-zine called Monkey, doubts abounded. A lot of people had tried e-zines, none with any great success, and besides, the men's category was already overcrowded.
These months later, Dennis claims that the free weekly digital magazine is doing well, and the best evidence of that may be Gizmo, a new e-zine very much like Monkey that Dennis aims to launch on March 11.
That's Gizmo as in boy toys.
Dennis is not saying much about Gizmo at this point beyond this: It will be 26 pages, six of which will be advertising. It will target men 25 to 45, and to build readership Dennis will aggressively target that demographic from its databases of about 3.5 million men aged 18 to 45, some number of those gathered from its print circulation lists. It will come out every two weeks.
Gizmo will be just like a print magazine, with numbered pages that turn, and with all the design elements that distinguish print magazines, but it will be on the web and downloadable.
Dennis's Ben Raworth calls Gizmo something from electronic heaven. “The marriage of consumer technology with this medium (e-zine) seems perfect,” says Raworth, editor in chief of new product development for Dennis.
It will work like this. Readers will receive an mail notifying them the latest edition of the magazine is out and available. They can then click through to see the magazine. The pages, though looking like magazine pages, will contain embedded video and other rich media.
Gizmo will not be a web site but a real magazine that happens to be available on the web, and it’s a distinction Raworth thinks is important to make. “We will act as a filter for all the stuff out there, and the reader gets it in a neat package each fortnight,” he says.
Media people believe Gizmo could have legs. “I think it is quite a nice idea. A magazine like that seems to really fit with the format of the e-magazine,” says Dan Pimm, head of print media at Universal McCann.
But that said, they don't necessarily see a rush of online magazines in its wake, should it prove itself. Pimm sees e-zines as a niche area, something most attractive to young men.
Steve Goodman thinks much the same. He's managing director of print trading at Group M. Says Goodman: “So far I can’t say they have madly taken off in the consumer sector.”
Media people note that another e-zine, called Jellyfish from NatMag that targeted young teens, closed.
Says Tony Evans, investment director for digital at media network MindShare: “Twelve-to 18-year-old girls didn’t want it with Jellyfish. They didn’t want a static experience. They wanted something more lifelike.”
But there were other problems as well. Jellyfish's young target audience made finding databases of email addresses difficult, and the magazine was reportedly often blocked by spam filters at hotmail, a popular server for that age group.
But in any case, these problems aside, the e-zine format has one big plus for publishers, notes Evans.
In the case of Monkey, ad rates have been based on the number of people who open the e-zine, rather than the more complicated metrics that web sites sell by. Evans believes this works out more favorably for the publisher.
As for Dennis, more e-zines are likely to follow, and the company is also looking at the possibilities of licensing Monkey overseas.
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended Feb. 10, according to Nielsen Online, Google claimed the top spot among parent companies, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, Microsoft and AOL Media Network.
NexTag was the No. 1 advertiser with 7.1 million impressions, followed by No. 2 Experian Group Limited at 6 million. With 31.7 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 4.3 million.
Sessions per person per week were even to the previous week at 17, and domains visited per person were even at 41. PC time per person was even compared with the previous week, at 18 hours and 24 minutes.
Top 25 parent companies Through Feb. 10
#
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
88,824
64.3
0:34:56
2
Microsoft
87,023
63.0
0:46:44
3
Yahoo!
78,526
56.9
1:07:51
4
Time Warner
68,624
49.7
1:24:30
5
News Corp. Online
45,471
32.9
0:47:01
6
eBay
34,460
25.0
0:53:38
7
InterActiveCorp
29,139
21.1
0:12:27
8
Amazon
26,443
19.2
0:14:25
9
Wikimedia Foundation
24,272
17.6
0:09:24
10
Apple Computer
24,258
17.6
0:29:33
11
Walt Disney Internet Group
22,687
16.4
0:23:17
12
New York Times Company
21,314
15.4
0:09:38
13
Landmark Communications
21,229
15.4
0:10:00
14
AT&T Inc.
17,287
12.5
0:25:40
15
E.W. Scripps Company
14,920
10.8
0:06:33
16
RealNetworks, Inc.
14,791
10.7
0:17:50
17
Comcast Corp.
13,480
9.8
0:27:56
18
CNET Networks
13,167
9.5
0:05:36
19
Bank of America
12,794
9.3
0:22:24
20
Verizon Communications
12,018
8.7
0:21:14
21
Viacom Digital
11,700
8.5
0:25:59
22
Gannett
11,499
8.3
0:11:30
23
CBS Corporation
11,005
8.0
0:12:54
24
General Electric
10,795
7.8
0:07:56
25
CraigsList
10,712
7.8
0:41:57
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 brands Through Feb. 10
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
81,742
59.2
0:26:55
2
Yahoo!
77,641
56.2
1:08:14
3
MSN/Windows Live
63,929
46.3
0:47:51
4
Microsoft
57,083
41.3
0:17:30
5
AOL Media Network
54,267
39.3
1:33:53
6
Fox Interactive Media
38,306
27.7
0:51:30
7
YouTube
33,290
24.1
0:22:23
8
eBay
28,500
20.6
0:58:38
9
Apple
24,258
17.6
0:29:33
10
Wikipedia
24,030
17.4
0:09:26
11
Amazon
22,044
16.0
0:14:16
12
CNN Digital Network
19,716
14.3
0:22:04
13
Weather Channel
18,607
13.5
0:09:53
14
Blogger
16,440
11.9
0:06:39
15
Ask Search Network
16,209
11.7
0:14:06
16
Real Network
14,785
10.7
0:17:49
17
About.com
13,338
9.7
0:02:56
18
AT&T
12,805
9.3
0:31:08
19
Bank of America
12,380
9.0
0:22:30
20
Craigslist
10,712
7.8
0:41:57
21
Disney Online
10,577
7.7
0:23:01
22
Comcast
10,245
7.4
0:34:32
23
Facebook
10,024
7.3
0:33:46
24
Chase
9,435
6.8
0:14:46
25
PayPal
9,083
6.6
0:11:21
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 advertisers (excludes house ads)
Through Feb. 10
#
Company
Impressions (000)
1
NexTag, Inc.
7,083,323
2
Experian Group Limited
6,041,399
3
InterActiveCorp
3,330,948
4
Netflix, Inc.
2,877,601
5
Vonage Holdings Corp
2,295,984
6
Sprint Corporation
1,796,255
7
Bank of America Corporation
1,222,531
8
GiftFreebies.com
915,495
9
Apollo Group, Inc.
887,140
10
Lenovo Group
804,237
11
HSBC Holdings plc
797,323
12
Verizon Communications, Inc.
742,696
13
AT&T Corp.
742,495
14
Low.com
634,566
15
Scottrade, Inc.
565,185
16
Xadvantage
542,404
17
TaxACT
515,729
18
Course Advisor, Inc.
500,557
19
CoolSavings, Inc.
499,759
20
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.
482,522
21
eBay, Inc.
459,150
22
Wachovia Corporation
444,364
23
General Motors Corporation
436,071
24
Citigroup Inc.
434,394
25
XM Satellite Radio, Inc.
393,842
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.
Top 25 advertising sites (excludes house ads)
Through Feb. 10
Company
Impressions (000)
1
Yahoo!
31,710,984
2
MySpace
4,300,578
3
MSN
1,746,976
4
AOL.com
1,183,151
5
eBay
1,066,064
6
MSNBC
931,061
7
Comcast.net
632,354
8
CNN
609,780
9
FOXNEWS.COM
539,261
10
Facebook
510,776
11
New York Times
508,905
12
The Weather Channel
506,974
13
Home & Garden Television
475,717
14
Amazon
465,952
15
IMDb
436,348
16
Juno
403,058
17
NetZero
387,062
18
MyPoints
330,504
19
Photobucket
295,564
20
NeoPets
292,016
21
ESPN.com
249,092
22
FOX Sports on MSN
232,659
23
CNN Money
228,897
24
Excite
194,852
25
EarthLink
160,813
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.
