One of the most interesting (social) media ventures of
the past couple of years has been San Francisco-based 8020 Publishing.
Here's how it worked: anyone could submit pictures and articles via the
Internet for the company's two publications (JPG, devoted to
photography, and Everywhere, which focused on travel); online readers
voted on their favorite submissions; and a small staff of 10 assembled
the layouts into a magazine available for free as a downloadable PDF or
at newsstands for $6.
Backed by C|Net founder Halsey Minor, the
concept of a crowdsourced magazine was so ingenious that University of
Mississippi professor and Mr. Magazine blogger Samir Husni told the New York Times in 2007,
“You’re going to see more of this....I don’t think it’s just about
getting cheap content into a magazine. Seeing their own work in print
makes people feel like part of a community.”
Today, it would
appear that such a community was not enough. Reporter Brad Stone posted
on the New York Times' Bits blog that 8020 publishing is shutting down,
taking with it JPG and Everywhere. Stone wrote:
JPG had a circulation of around 50,000 and had recently secured some prominent space on newsstands around the country.
But
ultimately the money ran out, and Mr. Minor declined to invest more,
according to a person with knowledge of the situation. 8020 was
attempting to either raise more money from other investors or to sell
itself to big media names, including the Meredith Corporation and Conde
Nast, but with no success. Mr. Minor could not be reached for comment
on Thursday.
The 18 employees who worked for 8020 were given the
holiday week off. On Tuesday, they received individual telephone calls
and e-mail messages telling them that the company had exhausted its
options and was shutting down.
Given the small
size of the magazine's staffs., I'd have to think that it was the
economy more than the concept that is to blame for 8020 Publishing's
collapse. Regardless, amateur and semi-professional photographers and
writers must all be shedding a tear for the untimely passing of these
two mags.
