Reviews and Studies

Computerworld.com has overcome the hurdle of letting their print roots go … Continue Reading »

Jennifer Harnetty is the managing editor of CeramicArtsDaily.org, an online community serving active potters and ceramic artists worldwide … Continue Reading »

Praveen Kumar shares his culture through food at AwesomeCuisine.com

Praveen Kumar started out as a web designer in 2000 and then moved in to SEO in 2004. After which, he worked with some of the top dot-com companies in India. Kumar had always wanted to be a chef but since that didn’t happen, he turned her passion for good food into a website where he could share delicious Indian recipes with everyone at AwesomeCuisine.com.

Kumar also enjoys writing poetry, and began writing online at PoetryOfLife.com. It doesn’t end there, as he also owns a dot-com company providing SEO services and design consulting while trying to be a full-time entrepreneur. … Continue Reading »

The 2009 Mequoda Hotlist is our annual listing of the fastest growing Mequoda System Publishers in America. The multi-media publishers in the Mequoda Hotlist are used by the Mequoda Research Team to maintain the Mequoda System Best Practices for Successful Online Publishing & Marketing and are the base line for virtually all the content produced for Mequoda Daily, Mequoda Webinars, Mequoda Pro Seminars on Demand and all live Mequoda Summits and Workshops. … Continue Reading »

Does this legacy publisher translate from print to online?
With so many newspapers going out of business, how has the Wall Street Journal not only survived but thrived? … Continue Reading »

Effective digital media strategy means building a multi-platform content Mequoda Media Pyramid
BLR.com is a Mequoda “best practice” multiplatform publisher, and its creator, Bob Brady, has been setting a standard for excellence and innovation since before we coined the term “Mequoda.”
… Continue Reading »

This daily entertainment news update has a great footer and from line, but it’s first and preview screens aren’t exactly star studded … Continue Reading »

For most publishers, trying to find the right balance of free vs. paid content is difficult. Give too much away and readers won’t be willing to pay for what’s left. Keep it all behind a subscription wall and readers don’t have enough information to know if it’s content they want or need. … Continue Reading »

How TripAdvisor.com builds brand loyalty by interacting with their community … Continue Reading »

Harvard has opted not to use a traditional landing page to sell the Harvard Health Letter.

Instead, the main sales page for the Harvard Health Letter is a minimal transaction page with the barest of copy and graphics, and is devoid of the selling effort one would normally expect when promoting a paid subscription publication online.

Knowing the smart marketers at Harvard, we have to believe that this is a deliberate choice. As we recall, they don’t use this “bare minimum” approach in print promotions: their paper direct mail that we’ve seen consists of strong, long-copy sales letters that sell the publication and its benefits, and sell it hard. Why then would they opt for this “bare bones” approach online? This review really addresses a broader, more important question: are online and offline copy fundamentally the same or fundamentally different? … Continue Reading »

“What’s not to like about an email newsletter that covers all aspects of wine enjoyment?” the reviewer asks herself as she sips a find Cotes du Rhone Rose. Okay, well maybe not so fine. But it sure does taste good on a quiet Friday evening when you’re writing on deadline instead of dining out with friends. But I digress…

Sips & Tips, a free weekly email newsletter from Wine Spectator magazine, has become one of my favorite things. It’s a small but mighty 2 pages that often includes: … Continue Reading »

Stuck in 1995: Computerworld’s E-mail Newsletter Needs an Update

When you’re writing about technology, it’s good to deliver that information via the latest channels. Computerworld, published by International Data Group (IDG), does just that, offering their content via a website, blogs, webcasts, podcasts, RSS feeds and email newsletters, in addition to the original print publication.

I applaud their embrace of so many different formats as well as their breadth of information (they offer 46 email newsletters in all). But I wonder if they haven’t spread themselves too thin. … Continue Reading »

Little was simple about the launch of Real Simple back in 2000, but after about a year and a half of tweaking, Real Simple hit its stride. Within the first few years, the magazine became profitable, and that gave the publisher an opportunity to see what else the brand could do for its readers.

One of the first places they expanded in was in books, which go deeper into a subject area. They now boast a syndicated newspaper column, a relationship with XM radio, a TV program on PBS, physical products like home office accessories and live events. … Continue Reading »

The Motley Fool uses its powerful brand to launch seven successful print newsletters for personal investors that will generate $22M in 2005 revenues. Traditional advertising-driven Internet business model takes a back seat.

After the 2001 dot-com stock market crash occurred, The Motley Fool was forced to change its online business model. The years of generating more than $20 million in advertising revenue were long gone, much like the employees who suffered layoffs. They abandoned the advertising model for the print subscription model and today are succeeding handsomely. The Fool’s first print investment newsletter The Motley Fool Stock Advisor (launched as a partnership with Phillips Investment Resources) proved to be very popular and profitable. Its success has now spawned the launch of six more print titles, making The Motley Fool a major player in the paid subscription content business. … Continue Reading »

Beyond being a mere household name, Martha Stewart has become synonymous with home decorating, cooking and gardening—bringing beauty to all things domestic. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc (MSLO), is an integrated media company distributing the “art of everyday living” to us in many different channels.

All these channels circle and promote each other, as Martha talks about her paint color used in the kitchen on her show, advertisers buy across the media outlets, content can be re-purposed in books and DVDs, and so on. … Continue Reading »

Taunton’s Fine Woodworking launched in 1975 as a black-and-white quarterly, followed by books on woodworking.

A few years ago, they started publishing special newsstand editions, which they now do seven times a year. Most are created from repurposed content from the magazine.

They have been producing video for 20 years and with the advent of DVDs, finally turned a profit on their video content. They also have a membership website at FineWoodworking.com.

They are now putting more emphasis on the advertising component and plan to use the same multiplatform model (or a variation of it) for their other brands

A few years ago, they started publishing special newsstand editions, which they now do seven times a year. Most are created from repurposed content from the magazine.

They have been producing video for 20 years and with the advent of DVDs, finally turned a profit on their video content. They also have a membership website at FineWoodworking.com. … Continue Reading »

Today, most would-be travelers start their journeys online by researching destinations, carrier schedules, accommodations and free web mapping services.

In order to compete with travel agencies and agents, travel information publishers, who traditionally published books, magazines and newsletters, have migrated to the Internet and become online publishers. Some have created retail websites whose primary objective is to sell traditional hard-copy books. Others are focused on publishing travel reviews on their sites, and derive revenue from advertising and affiliate links. … Continue Reading »

Atkins, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, The Zone – diets are big business these days, a trend The South Beach Diet is looking to leverage online. But does their free email newsletter deliver a well-balanced menu of information or does it need to cut the fat? This month’s email newsletter review looks at The Daily Dish and makes some recommendations. … Continue Reading »

This Email Newsletter is a Study in Extremes. With Four A’s, an F and a D, a Little More Attention to Small Details Would Improve the Reader Experience and Should Lift Response. … Continue Reading »

Top Chef, Iron Chef, Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay – seems like America’s new favorite hobby is cooking. Publisher Cook’s Illustrated, one of the grand dames of the industry, is also in the mix. In addition to their TV show on PBS they have a Website and free email newsletter, which we’ll put to the test today in this email newsletter review. … Continue Reading »

Amazon.com: Bigger IS Better

Size may not always matter, but being big certainly does matter (and always has) to Amazon.com. After all, the company’s mission is to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company—a place where people can find anything they might want to buy online at the lowest possible price.” That’s a tall order in anyone’s book, a big idea that finally, after 10 budget-busting years, has brought Amazon.com big success. The company behind what may be the most recognized brand on the Internet now generates billions of dollars in annual revenue and multimillions of dollars in annual profit. … Continue Reading »

House of White Birches, a division of the Dynamic Resource Group, is an experienced print publisher. It has an enviable collection of magazines and book titles. It has carved out several profitable special-interest niches that it addresses with excellent products. But like many other successful print publishers, its Internet marketing strategy is not well executed.

The WhiteBirches.com site suffers from disorganization and an inferior architecture that confuses users and diminishes sales. … Continue Reading »

In Psychology 101 we all learned the basic principles of attraction and avoidance. Pleasure and pain. Reward and punishment.Boiled down, I think of it this way: You either want something you don’t have, or you have something you don’t want.If you suffer with back pain, you have something you really don’t want, and you’re not alone. … Continue Reading »

LendingTree: Making Matches…Making Money

Web watchers were skeptical when LendingTree.com launched in 1998. Despite the surging use of the Internet during the 1990s, those in the know had doubts whether consumers would trust posting their financial information online. For that very reason, banking institutions, as you may recall, were among the slowest—let’s say the most careful—to transact business via the Web. Privacy issues remain, of course, but LendingTree LLC has proven that consumers are very much interested in shopping online—even for loans—and lenders, in turn, are willing to pay for those leads. … Continue Reading »

How America’s Test Kitchen’s Revenues have Grown from About $15 million to an Estimated $46 million in Just Five Years… Shouldn’t you be Using the Same Strategy for Selling your Information Products on the Internet? Doesn’t your Job Depend on it?

Chris Kimball, CEO of Boston Common Press, is master of what we now call multiplatform publishing. Chris has gone from a publishing a single cooking magazine, Cook’s Illustrated to a growing media empire that spans books, another print magazine, books, membership websites, a TV Show on PBS, email newsletters and DVDs. … Continue Reading »

The Mequoda Library recently did an Internet Hub Case Study on America’s Test Kitchen. A brief recap: the company takes the 2.9 million viewers from their TV show, America’s Test Kitchen, and pushes them to www.AmericasTestKitchen.com, a Mequoda Internet Hub, where viewers can get recipes featured on the show for free. … Continue Reading »

Citizen or participatory journalism, according to the experts, is the act of citizens “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.”

So say Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis, authors of the report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information.

Bowman and Willis contend that the intent of this participation “is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.” … Continue Reading »

If what we learned in Psychology 101 is true, the basic motivators of human behavior are simple: humans seek pleasure and avoid pain. You either have something you don’t want (avoidance principle) or you want something you don’t have (pleasure principle).

Psychologists tell us that everybody wants: food, shelter, health, sex, love, money and general well being. Look at every product you see advertised on the Internet or elsewhere. The ultimate reward to losing weight, finding a better job, buying a better home or car, etc., is finding intimacy with the person of your dreams—your soul mate. … Continue Reading »

The Writer’s Store is an extremely competent site serving a tightly-focused niche market.
Although competent in most areas, a few, relatively easily-implemented changes—described in the Recommendations section at the end of this review—could increase sales by building a stronger emotional bond between the store and its customers. … Continue Reading »

We were first introduced to InvestmentU.com when we interviewed John Phillips, who heads up search marketing for the website. He and his team have done a very impressive job of bringing visitors to the InvestmentU.com site with a combination of organic and paid search. In this review, we look at the landing page that InvestmentU.com uses to convert these visitors to customers for its lead product, The Investment U Course. … Continue Reading »

Evaluating Risks and Embracing Change: How the Forward-Looking Management of Mother Earth News is Transforming a Traditional Print Magazine Publisher Into a Cutting-Edge, Online Information Provider

If your magazine and the brand it represents have survived and grown for 35 years, you might be tempted to rest on your laurels. “If it ain’t broke…” But smart publishers recognize that both the market and the medium are constantly evolving. The Internet forever changed the way thinking people consume information. It also presented new challenges and opportunities to savvy publishers and marketers. … Continue Reading »

Agora Financial Network: Understanding the Seven Strategies that Drive the World’s Most Successful Special-Interest Website Network

The Mequoda Group estimates that the Agora Financial Network will post top-line revenues for 2006 of $55 million, with $41 million being generated online. This makes each of its 500,000 domestic subscribers worth about $82. … Continue Reading »

Following the Passion

When you’re passionate about something, you want to know everything there is to know about it, according to Carol Fitzgerald, president of The Book Report Network. She explains, for example, that she fell in love with Simon & Garfunkel when she was 13 years old. She learned a little about the duo’s background previous recordings from the back notes of her “Bookends” album cover. But passion drove her to the microfiche at her local library, where she pored over clippings and articles about the men and their music. … Continue Reading »

Internet Movie Database: The screen’s big scene

By its own declaration, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a HUGE collection of movie information. Its database catalogs every pertinent detail about a movie — which actors were in it, who produced and directed it, filming locations for it, trivia about it, even where you can find reviews and fan sites elsewhere on the web. IMDb presents all that information and more in a manner that is easily accessible and searchable. In fact, IMDb is the Web’s most comprehensive, authoritative, and, best of all, free source of information on movies and the film industry. It’s a favorite of hardcore film fans, industry professionals, random moviegoers, and trivia aficionados — all of whom appreciate a serious resource that can also be fun. So grab some popcorn and settle in. It’s show time! … Continue Reading »

Pepsi.com, a Very Successful Brand Site, Chose a Target Audience, Explored the Audience’s Needs, Determined Their Own Business Goals, and Designed a Smash Hit of a Site

The first question everyone asks: “Why would anyone go to Pepsi.com?” This is because we mostly think of the Web as a distribution vehicle. We think of ordering books at Amazon, or reading content at CNN, or downloading music from MTV. How do you drink a soda on a computer screen? … Continue Reading »

How They Created the World’s Number One Business Website

We’ve been taught that successful website publishing in 2005 means creating happy users and healthy profits. With 10.3 million worldwide unique visitors per month, I think it’s fair to say that Forbes.com has done just that. … Continue Reading »

The biggest flaws are the lack of a unique selling proposition in the headline and lead and failure to establish the qualifications and credentials of the course creator or publisher.

My advice to the Rocket French company… I also think there might be a missed opportunity in not starting with where the reader already might be in her search for French mastery: frustrated by failure in high school, college, and other programs. … Continue Reading »

With Advertisers Footing the Bill, Forbes.com has Built a Website Offering a Superior—and Free—Online Content Experience for Users.

Forbes.com is part of (do I really need to say this?) the Forbes family publishing business. Including the familiar Forbes magazine, the websites Forbes.com and ForbesAutos.com, spin-off magazines such as ForbesLife, business and investing specialty newsletters, a business conference division and Forbes on Fox TV. This is a typical Mequoda publishing pyramid—with a very rich family sitting on top. … Continue Reading »

The Site that Earned a Top Score in 2004 Hasn’t Lost Too Much Ground. The Lesson Here is Simply a Wake-Up Call—for Online Publishers, Continuous Improvement is a Requirement Just to Keep Up.

Readers familiar with Mequoda as Internet Media Review (IMR), might remember that Discover.com was given the number one Best Practice Ranking for Consumer Magazine Website Design. Since that time, a lot has changed—for Discover.com, for the Mequoda website design scorecard and for magazine websites. … Continue Reading »

Creating the World’s Most Popular Website for Entrepreneurial Capitalists

With 2006 revenues estimated at more than $510 million, up from an estimated $460 million for 2005, the newly formed Forbes Media Network is on a roll.

Forbes Media currently includes print, online conferences, radio and TV properties. At this time, an estimated $330 million still comes from the American edition of Forbes Magazine, however, senior executives Steve Forbes and Jim Spanfeller both tell Mequoda that online publishing revenues will pass print in 2008 or 2009—if the current growth rates for both print (up 6% for 2006) and online (up 57% for 2006) hold for 2007, 2008 and 2009. … Continue Reading »

Selling Goal-Setting and Motivational Information to a Niche Market of Nascent Planners and High Achievers: The Goals Guy Thrives with Laser-like Focus on Creating Quality Digital Products, Superior Search Engine Optimization and Smart Strategic Alliances

Gary Ryan Blair is a serious strategic planner. His personal philosophy can be summarized in two words: Everything Counts!™ Blair believes in sweating the small stuff, and teaches that every action, word and thought either moves you toward or away from your goals, mission and ultimate legacy—that every moment offers an opportunity for advancement or retreat. … Continue Reading »

With A’s in Strategic Intent, Relationship Building and Brand Preference, it’s Hardly Surprising that this Non-Profit is an Online Leader in the Paid Membership Website Category.

Consumer Reports’ successful membership website strategy has earned them over two million online subscribers (as of November, 2005). Averaging well over 20,000 new online subscribers per month, it’s obvious this site is doing something right. … Continue Reading »

eBay: People, Places, and Lots of Things

Just as the Internet was blossoming in the mid-90s, software engineer Pierre Omidyar established the world’s first online auction site for mostly personal reasons. His fiancée (now wife) Pam—an avid collector of PEZ™ candy dispensers—was having difficulty finding other collectors with whom she could trade. Sitting in his living room in San Jose, California, Omidyar solved her dilemma—and that of millions of other collectors and traders in years to come. He created eBay. … Continue Reading »

CooksIllustrated.com has Earned High Marks in Relationship Building and Readability. Other Areas Such as Community Building Display a Good Infrastructure that Could Really be Impressive with a Little More Promotion.
Mequoda has previously covered the Boston Common Press’s media network in America’s Test Kitchen Media Network Case Study by Jane E. Zarem. The membership website (and print magazine) Cook’s Illustrated is an important part of the business strategy. Here we’ll review the design and usability of the membership website CooksIllustrated.com. With 120,000 paid online subscribers, this site’s recipe is worth a try. … Continue Reading »

Landing Page Scorecard: Rose-Growing-Secrets.com

Internet Explorer, the pundits tell us, accounts for up to 95 percent of all Web browser traffic. So why should we care about that small minority of surfers who prefer alternative browsers such as Netscape Communicator, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari?

And why waste time with those non-conformist non-Windows users who are stuck with the Mac version of IE? … Continue Reading »

Clayton Makepeace is a legend in the direct response advertising business. He has the respect of both his clients and peers—the hallmark of a real professional.

He has a huge portfolio of winning direct mail packages, commands top dollar for his work and in April of 2006 conducted a $5,000-per-seat, how-to seminar for aspiring copywriters. I can’t imagine anyone not putting his name on their top-10 list.

At MakepeaceTotalPackage.com Mr. Makepeace displays his considerable skill with one objective: to get other copywriters to sign up for his free email newsletter. … Continue Reading »

MarthaStewart.com Stands Out for Integration of TV and Magazine Content Online, but Otherwise the Site is Doing Poorly on Some Key Usability Guidelines.

You almost can’t have a dinner party without someone making a “Martha Stewart” comment at some point during the evening. Beyond being a mere household name, Martha Stewart has become synonymous with home decorating, cooking and gardening—bringing beauty to all things domestic. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc (MSLO), is an integrated media company distributing the “art of everyday living” to us in many different channels, broken down into business segments: … Continue Reading »

In our NicheADay.com Landing Page Review we examined an information product designed for opportunity-seekers. That’s a large and ever-changing market niche comprised of would-be business owners.

These are people who are dissatisfied with their jobs, or have recently become unemployed, and suddenly decide to go into business for themselves. They may suddenly embrace the “American Dream” of being self-employed and start what they hope will become a profitable business. They even call themselves entrepreneurs. One of my mentors, Michael Gerber, calls that “having an entrepreneurial seizure.” … Continue Reading »

Knitters Review is a Great Web-product for the Target Audience of Knitters. It’s Easy to Use, Easy to Read, Easy to Interact With and the Brand has Integrity.

Knitter’s Review is a six-year-old site run by a small group of enthusiasts. Their story in the About pages tells of publishing veteran Clara Parkes, who left the rat race where she produced large scale websites and escaped to the peace of rural Maine to focus on doing something she loved. She has two compatriots who represent the operational and technical ends of KnittersReview.com (KR), and the support of her friends, family and postmistress, but not much else. In other words, a true hands-on, do-it-yourself success story.

The success of the site is readily apparent in the plethora of forum posts. This is the real deal, a community site that has been brought together via KR’s weekly editorial product reviews. The site makes its revenues through advertising and their own store. It is a true Mequoda network that is run without a large publishing company behind it—just good old-fashioned know-how. … Continue Reading »

If You Want a Landing Page that Excites the Senses and Hits all the Hot Buttons with Ample Proof, Then This is the One to Mirror.

We are back now with another offer from her highness, Alexandria Brown, “The Ezine Queen.” After seeing this site I have decided that I might want to be a loyal subject. “The Queen” has brought you into her kingdom by earlier selling you her ezine course. This is good. This is how you get folks into your funnel. NOW, Ali is joining other Internet Marketers (with one main difference that I shall discuss later) and upselling them to a hands-on business marketing seminar. … Continue Reading »