Participants wanted for Shifting Landscape of Magazines - Web 2.0 Study

PLEASE JOIN IN NOW BY SURFING & COMMENTING
The study welcomes the participation of anyone who is working, or has worked, in magazines. The more people contributing to this important conversation the better, so please join in. To participate, all you have to do is browse the site and comment, comment, comment. Based on the interest of people who would like to participate (but haven’t had a chance to yet), the study has been extended to run until the end of January 2010. Thank you to everyone who has participated so far.

STUDY OVERVIEW
This past May, media veteran Joel Johnson wrote a post on Boing Boing about the tensions between Wired.com and Wired magazine, expressing fear that mainstream magazines would not be able to make the transition to online because “they can’t accept that the work at which they have excelled for years will be just as important when it’s online — and online only.” Thirty minutes later the first response to Johnson’s piece was posted, followed by a steady stream of comments that would sustain...READ MORE

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Happy Holidays from the AMPA team!

Wishing you and your loved ones a warm and relaxing holiday season.

The AMPA office will be closed from December 24th, returning on January 4th, 2010.

Free tools for Alberta instructors - Western Magazine Awards Foundation Curriculum Project

Through a grant from the WMAF, Janice Paskey, assistant professor of journalism at Mount Royal University, together with MRU journalism student Jessica Petillot, and Information Design student Julie Cripps, worked on a series of PowerPoint presentations that bring award-winning WMAF winners to the classroom.

These are available free of charge to all instructors through login from the WMAF home page.

To All Professional Publishing Program Instructors
The Western Magazine Awards Foundation is pleased to offer course curriculums in both writing and art direction. Using the winning entries in the Provincial Gold Awards and the Art Direction Awards, the WMAF has developed teaching programs to help students understand what works in today’s magazine publishing world—and why.

The curriculums are available for use, by instructors only, at any college or university level writing, design or magazine publishing program. There is no charge for this service.

To access the secure login area, please visit www.westernmagazineawards.ca and click on the 2009 WMA Curriculum Project link. You will be asked to identify yourself and your educational facility. Within 48 hours, login credentials will be emailed to you from corey@westernmagazineawards.ca. Then, login again to our web site and click on the Curriculum and Instructor Notes link. You will find a PowerPoint presentation as well as Instructor Notes for each entry.

This is a new program for us and the WMAF would love to hear what you think. Please share your opinions by writing to corey@westernmagazineawards.ca.

Thank you for including the Western Magazine Awards in your Publishing Program.

Western Magazine Awards Foundation Curriculum Project

The publications represented in these presentations are:

The Beaver, Manitoba
beavermagazine.ca
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Westworld Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan
canadawide.com

Swerve, Alberta/NWT
calgaryherald.com/swerve-magazine

up! magazine, BC/Yukon
up-magazine.com

Vancouver Magazine, Best Art Direction Cover/Best Art Direction Article
vanmag.com

Magazine Closures Taper Off

Folio recently reported that while there were 428 titles in the U.S. that closed their doors, that number is still down from closures in 2008 and 2007. While magazine closures are never a happy thing, the fact that the number of mags shutting down is down is a good sign for the industry at large.

See the whole story.

Paper made from wheat, rice and straw bits? Uh huh. Agricultural Residue Papers can become a reality--with your help!

Paper in North America comes from trees. But we can learn from countries like China and India that have 20% of their paper made from alternative sources, like wheat, rice and straw.

Though 300 book publishers, magazines and newspapers in North America support both the development and use of paper made from agricultural residues (such as the Wheat Sheet seen in Canadian Geographic's June 2008 issue), no infrastructure for these papers exists.

If you are a magazine publisher, decision-maker, large paper consumer, Canopy needs your help to shape the next steps in creating a future for a North American agricultural residue pulp and paper infrastructure.

Have your say—this study will help Canopy identify new and emerging opportunities for environmental paper development. Complete the survey by December 20, 2009.

For more information, please contact: Neva Murtha, Second Harvest Campaigner 604-817-4964 neva@canopyplanet.org