It's about time the magazine world jacked Netflix's business plan. Maghound is Time Inc's new service that lets you, the consumer, choose which magazines you want to receive every month—with no hassles, and one low price! (Runs hand, model-like, over selection of 240 glossy magazines). Seriously, this may not save the magazine industry, but it's a good product for anyone who likes magazines. For these three reasons! 1. Gladiator Wars: Assuming Maghound takes off, it will offer a pure look at what consumers want to read (at least within the limited, non-Hearst pool of 240 magazines) when offered a broad array of choices. It could become the Billboard charts of magazine popularity. Plus you can watch magazines get dropped from subscriber lists immediately when people find out their content sucks! Now we just have to ask Time Inc. to make all this data public. 2. Price: Three titles for five bucks a month, five for eight bucks, seven for ten bucks. It's a deal and a half. If Maghound takes off it should cut into news stand sales, because it allows you to sample issues without paying the price of a subscription or the higher price of a news stand copy. 3. Expansion: The roster of magazines available now lacks big names like The Atlantic, The Economist, Esquire, and a bunch of others. But if Maghound proves to be a successful business, that list is bound to expand, because magazines—except very high-end titles—will see that it's in their economic interest to be included. So it's fair to expect more choice in the future. Or the thing will fold, but you only lost five bucks a month. So who cares? [Folio, Paid Content]

"i went home an began writin/a suicide note" [New Yorker, New Yorker]

The Atlantic has said it didn't vet Jill Greenberg's politics before hiring her to shoot John McCain. Even if it had known about her controversial anti-George Bush photographs, it wouldn't have cared, as a matter of policy. The policy may soon change: Greenberg is gloating she left McCain's eyes bloodshot and skin gnarly for the Atlantic's October cover. Worse, from the magazine's perspective, is that she tricked the Republican presidential nominee into standing over an unflattering strobe light, then posted the worst shots and Photoshops to her personal site:

Project Runway is helping Elle fare the media recession far better than fashion-mag-competitor Vogue. Elle's all-important September issue has 7 percent more ads than last year compared with a 7 percent decline at Vogue. And as shown in the Ad Age graphic at left, Vogue's ad-page lead slipped January through September. And there are other reasons Anna Wintour should be pissed at herself for passing on the chance to tie Vogue into Runway:

We just heard—and Jossip confirms!—that exec editor Rob Shuter is OUT at OK!(.) He says "resigned," we hear "fired." Shuter was the hated lying flack who we accused of destroying an honorable craft when he ascended to head the celeb weekly. His "celebrity-fair" style of coverage made his magazine the friendliest and also least interesting of the tabs. OK!'s new GM, Kent Brownridge, is probably behind the shake-up. Also: we were told former Daily Newser Laura Schreffler got canned too. Can anyone confirm?

Gawker-approved blogger The Assimilated Negro sent us—and you—a gift! He writes: "There's a lot of buzz about post-racial this, and pre-internet that, but suffice to say those two things (race and the internet) have made the national conversation about our "American" Culture infinitely more complex. And of course everyone loves to pin the post-racial hubbub to Obama, but I'm thinking a lot of this acknowledging-differences-yet-remaining-united sensibility actually started post 9/11. I've long been a fan of NY Magazine's cracka-ass-crackatrix Approval Matrix; so on this post-9/11 day I thought it'd be appropriate to offer a more multicultural scatter-graph to help us analyze recent news happenings from a Post-Racial cultural context." So after the jump: The Melanin Matrix for 9/12.

Ab-spirational Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko, who writes books that put Barack Obama to shame, has a new project: to "satisfy the global appetite" for Women's Health. Too easy? [Folio]

Fired Vanity Fair writer Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (movie version forthcoming) chronicled the Manhattan media hellmouth of the 1990s. It would be much more difficult to make it in print journalism today, he admits to WWD. In fact, he says, if he were trying to start a media-career in the aughts, he'd probably be, like, working as a "slave" for this website in particular—and "sleeping on [Brit It Boy] Euan Rellie's floor":

Good, the do-gooder magazine founded by a rich young trust funder in order to raise money for charity, is, of course, a business failure. Because who wants to read that kind of magazine, really? Last time we pointed this out, angry commenters said we should give props to Good founder Ben Goldhirsh for putting his inheritance towards a worthy cause. We do! But that doesn't mean we would pay a nickel for his magazine. Clever riposte: Good is now going the Radiohead route by letting you pay whatever you want for a subscription. Ugh, is there some kind of moral imperative now? All the subscription money goes to a charity, which you can choose. You're definitely a bad person for not subscribing now. But! You can't in fact only pay a nickel; the lowest price offered is $1! Outrageous. But pay $20, and your subscription comes with a year's free admission to Good parties. I've been to one of those and let me tell you my friend, their desserts were mad off the hook. So pay $20, go to the next party with a spare bag, and you have gourmet cookies for a month. Everybody wins. Except the magazine, which will continue its inevitable slide towards bankruptcy (sorry). [via FBNY]

Cityfile compiled a booklet of Faces at Fashion Week and posted it online so people like you could have your own glamorous little liquid crystal menagerie to admire right at your very own venue of indentured servitude. Look, Carine Roitfeld! The Ronsons! Andre Leon Talley and Kelly Cutrone and two separate Hearsts! And the most startling realization upon clicking and resetting text size enough to read the goddamn thing…

If you don't feel the spirit of love in the artwork above, your heart is made of stone and your abs are likely flabby. What you see is the actual Valentine's Day present that Dave Zinczenko, editor of Men's Health and the most inspirational American next to Obama, received this year from his girlfriend, the Brit actress Melissa Milne. Eat your heart out, Julia Allison! Ladies, take a moment to soak up the romance of this gift. The painting is a one-of-a-kind special by Kurt Walters, the boyfriend of MH design director George Karabotsos. And the artist finds Dave Z to be a true inspiration: From Kurt Walters' blog:

Well if it isn't a blessing from the Gawker Media Gods who brought us that pretty fundamentalist rape victim hating Alaska Governess! The Style Network plans to double your viewing rations of Project Runway judge Nina Garcia! This was known already, actually, but now there are details: the show is called Running in Heels and revolves around the staff of Marie Claire magazine, Elle having fired Garcia after deciding to make a reality show featuring Garcia rival Anne Slowey. Nina vs. Anne! Elle vs. Marie Claire! It is like Road Rules vs. The Real World, only…something we'll actually set our DVRs for! But can the show be anywhere near as awesome as the reality-TV-esque circumstances that enabled it to be?Nina told me1 last month she'd had plenty of offers to do other shows before, but didn't want to do a makeover show. She hasn't: According to Marie Claire, Running In Heels intends to "offer unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to Marie Claire and the stylish, smart women who put the magazine together each month," including "private video confessionals," in which "viewers will learn how the interns cope with their jobs, their superiors and each other." That sounds so good!!! Except, of course, for two things: 1. Seriously, it's Marie Claire.2 How bad could the bullshit be at Marie Claire? The show runs the risk of being as boring as Vogue's stupid three million dollar "documentary" web show no one except Tatiana watches. At least Elle's Stylista has the virtue of being watchable, at minimum, as a trainwreck. 2. It's going to be on the Style Network. Which is owned by Comcast, unlike new Project Runway host Lifetime, which is half-owned by Marie Claire publisher Hearst. What kind of entertainment conglomerate snatches up Nina Garcia only to not air her new foray into "docu"-reality TV? Something is off there. My guess is that Nina, who is pretty controlling of her image, did not want to make a campy gossipy addictive voyeuristic Devil Wears Prada-type reality show when she is already, you know, famous.

In nature, introducing an invasive species into an ecosystem has a domino effect. A new insect predator eats all the bugs, which are food for all the birds, which flock elsewhere, forcing the predators of the birds to migrate themselves, etc, etc. Also the beating of a butterfly's wing can cause a hurricane halfway across the world, I hear. So too goes the media industry! That's why you can thank the internet for driving all the rarefied magazines you love straight to the edge of a big big cliff. Why else would there already be an Us Weekly spinoff? The magazine industry is far more insulated from the economic pressures of blogs and news aggregators than newspapers are. But! High-end papers like the NYT and the WSJ, watching the internet eat away at their business model, are desperate to make up some of their revenue loss. So they start fancy weekend magazines—T and WSJ., respectively—to cater to luxury advertisers and bring in money to subsidize their real news operations, which are increasingly unprofitable. Both T and WSJ. have thus far done a good job of drawing in upscale advertisers. But guess who that hurts? Every other magazine that would like to draw in upscale advertisers. Which means all your favorites! So while newspapers are sprawling enough to extend their brands in a different direction, standalone magazines are not always so privileged. (Unless they have no fear of ridicule, like Us). In this way the internet screws newspapers, and newspapers screw magazines. And magazines screw... ?

Passion: it's a word. But for Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko, it's a word! That exclamation point represents passion—Dave's passion for his book, Eat This, Not That! Yesterday we heard the rumor that Dave, Julia Allison's old boyfriend, was looking for a new publicist to get him back on the Today show (he said no, only his magazine is hiring a publicist, not him). And we hinted at the existence of an internal email in which Zinczenko grandiosely compared his ab-centric book to "Barak [sic] Obama." Well now that email, from February, is in hand! "Who had a better last three weeks-Barak Obama, or Eat This, Not That? Crazy, audacious comparison, I know, but stay with me here." Okay, go:

It was a little over three years ago that the Onion lampooned the idea of a highbrow quarterly spinoff of Us Weekly. Now, thanks to the American cult of celebrity, this "joke" has finally come true! The celebrity gossip rag is expanding, via an unnamed new publication, into the slightly more highbrow topic of celebrity fashion, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning. Us owner Jann Wenner is chasing the success of People's StyleWatch, which now publishes 10 times per year and circulates more widely than Vogue. Given the "fashion" choices of many celebrities, that's insane. It's also a singular accomplishment: Time Inc.'s In Style and American Media's Star both launched failed fashion spinoffs. Maybe Wenner thinks he can do better. Or maybe he's just trying to jack up the price he'll fetch when the magazine overlord finally sells off (as long rumored) the Us portion of his empire. Notes the Journal:

Dave Zinczenko is the self-proclaimed "Barak [sic] Obama of publishing"! That, we hear, was just part of the inspirational email that Men's Health editor and former Julia Allison boyfriend Dave "Abs" Zinczenko sent out to his entire staff recently! He alone can save the magazine, was reportedly the gist of the message. Also, the Zinc is apparently searching for a top-notch publicist to get him back on the Today show—he used to appear regularly, but then his friend, a Today show producer, got fired! First he lost his title as Designated Magazine Industry Hottie, and now this. Perhaps Dave should be a bit more generous passing out the dinners with Men's Health models. Is Zinczenko really this much of a narcissist? He looks like such a nice young man. If you got the last email, or have other recent info to share about the abbed one, email us. [UPDATE: Dave Z tells us that Men's Health is looking for a new PR director, but that he is "Absolutely not looking for personal PR. (And never have)"]

The Food Network is starting a magazine with Hearst. It will be poetically named Food Network Magazine, and it will feature Food Network people and Food Network food. Appropriately, NBC's weight loss spectacle The Biggest Loser is also cranking out new books and promotions for Rodale magazines Prevention and Men's Health. And Starbucks has decided to start distributing an in-store version of money-losing do-gooder magazine Good. Reading in America: It doesn't happen unless food is involved. [Super Squats says drink your milk.]

Dying of anticipation wondering what Esquire's unwieldy new flashing E-ink magazine cover of the future will look like? Anticipate no more! Here's a video of its hypnotic, nonsensical flashing slogan: "The 21st Century Begins Now." Calendar not included.

The Wall Street Journal's new style-centric WSJ debuted this past weekend. How does it stack up against the Times' T magazine? Style.com compares and contrasts. [Style.com]

The total number of magazine ad pages fell more than 7% in the first half of this year. So the magazine industry says to itself, "You know what we need to sell more magazine ads? An ad campaign." Makes sense, right? And so does the message of this new campaign: "Magazine ads: they make people want to buy things." They're not beating around the bush here, people. Naturally, a big part of this new campaign is online. Hypocrisy in action? Not really!: The new ad campaign (including the pictured spot, which shows, apparently, my apartment), is nothing but images of people who bought a lot of shit after they read about it in an imaginary mag. But all the spots are designed to drive traffic to a website where there are a lot more stats on magazine advertising's effectiveness. Is this ironic, considering online ads are one major reason for the decline in magazine ads? Actually no, since part of the appeal of magazine ads is their ability to drive traffic to websites. It's right there, on the website! Also, magazines are far less threatened by the migration of advertisers to websites than newspapers are, because magazine ads are more appealing as a physical thing. Newspapers are the canaries in the ad coal mine. So magazines have nothing to worry about until newspaper advertising starts drying up, which... oh, right. The Times explains this mysterious business like so: