I've got access to some cunning business people that I'll be meeting with this weekend, probably Sunday.
They're not very internets literate, otherwise I'd have them come here, but they've started numerous successful businesses. It's their hobby. Build a successful business, sell it to someone, and start another one. And they're damn good at it.
Here's a chance to get professional insight on the monetary side of starting a periodical or the framework we'd need to build to launch one.
Is thinking of our publication in business terms something we even want to do?
Why? Why not?
What questions do you want to ask these people, if any?
its not my style to hint at things
so ill be blunt and say that until apocalypse reigns down upon this planet, i have every intention of earning my bread and butter in some form of media
and i would get a kick out of doing it up with the people from these boards
for me - if its not this, its gonna be something remarkably similar which is no doubt spawned from the topics discussed here
as far as your upcoming opportunity:
questions for these dudes:
1. what checks and balances need to be in place in order to get this done?
2. is the minimal-commitment approach viable in business terms?
3. is the publication market already too saturated?
4. what is the minimum quantity we would have to look at moving in order for this to be viable?
i think we are already good at not going forth with doomed ventures
but
as everybody else is apt to notice - theres a wealth of something here
ask them what they themselves look for before they invest in something
that would prolly be the most telling question
I have mostly the same questions as LHX, but what exactly would the product be? From what I've gathered, a magazine/series of books is what's most likely on the horizon, but some sort of concrete statement of intent would be helpful, if at least to give the business guys the impression that they would get some sort of return on their investment.
the production of creative and contradictory subversive and philosophical material that is dripping with style
the original PD was silly and funny
CotSG is threatening and funny
im not trying to be part of the LMNO fanclub here
but maybe its time to bring the sexy back
2007 style
keep all the sleazy-funny-morbid-threatening elements, but make it gorgeous to look at and easy to take in
if you're out to mindfuck, then it's the company printer and your free time.
if you're out to produce an actual publication you expect to make at least enough cash from to do it again next month/quarter/whatever, then you have to make people want to read it just to read it, not for some higher motive.
i love this idea.
my new philosophy includes the idea that 'selling out' is probably how HIV convinces your cells to let it in.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 07, 2007, 05:49:54 AM
my new philosophy includes the idea that 'selling out' is probably how HIV convinces your cells to let it in.
thats potent
Although this is completely unrelated this brings the novel "Accelerando" to mind. Does anyone know anything about Manfred Macx's approach to business, or understand what Stross was going for enough to discuss it?
Another "cyberpunk" novel that deserves mention due to what you say these "cunning" people do, is Cryptonomicon.
I am not as aware of or involved in this project as I would like to be, but know that periodicals with a niche market have a hard time, and unless the publishing of the issues is going to be fairly irregular in frequency this may not be the best way to approach this. Maybe an annual or biannual at best, otherwise just releasing it as a series of books may be the best approach.
if we do it annual or bi-annual it's not going to work because of the revolving door thing. in a year from now nobody might remember "hey shouldn't we bring out BIPmag#2 somewhere in June?"
If you think it will be popular enough to worry about the financial side of it then go for it. I think it is a good idea to try, I just don't know howm many submissions you will get in the time between each issue.
Paper is a kamikaze trip, due to cost and risk.
Why not publish in electronic form?
EXAMPLE (http://dennis.cerosmedia.com/c5d5fa62917cb31c6d6f4a8ba4e8f999392.cde)
Quote from: rygD on March 07, 2007, 01:30:03 PM
If you think it will be popular enough to worry about the financial side of it then go for it.  I think it is a good idea to try, I just don't know howm many submissions you will get in the time between each issue.
i don't think the amount of content will be a problem. seeing how much interesting stuff is written, and if we ever hit a "dry" period there's an archive of several years to dig through.
problem is, a magazine costs more effort than just writing content, you need layout and editing, which takes a lot of work if you wanna do it properly
Produce the papers online. Make them cheap to reproduce. Print off and spread them around, with the site URLs. More people who get interested, the larger a target audience can be built up.
so, host PDFs.
but we've been doing this for years at poee.co.uk
what's the problem with those? not "slick" enough?
I got a real boner for making my counter propaganda look the same as the shit I'm trying to subvert. If I was releasing a BIP or Discordia ezine it would look like 'Smash Hits' or Cosmopolitan.
But that's a personal thing. I think the reason POEE docs look like they do is more because they are designed to be dl'd and printed out right?
You haven't done them as periodical magazines that make it look like we already have enough of a readership base to justify them.
Quote from: SillyCybin on March 07, 2007, 01:53:31 PM
I got a real boner for making my counter propaganda look the same as the shit I'm trying to subvert. If I was releasing a BIP or Discordia ezine it would look like 'Smash Hits' or Cosmopolitan.
co-sign
im about ready to stop posting and let SC handle it for me
I'll be perfectly honest in that the idea of business and BIP co-mingling makes me feel a little icky.  But, that's just me, and it is probably irrational.  That said, I wouldn't hold it up or rail against it either.  I'd still put in my contributions (literary not monetary) and wish it the best.  It just would seem weird to see our stuff all glossy and pretty.  But, like LHX says, we've got "a wealth of something here."  It would be cool to get some more exposure to it, so I could live with my emo-sell-out angst if it means getting a few more heads into this stuff.  
I think my biggest concern/question would be about editing and control over the message and content.  I would be quite insistent that outside of grammar and punctuation that our messages be left as is.  
Well, that and profit sharing.
if the message got changed, it wouldnt be us anymore
it would be something different
When we sell this cow, we're all gonna be smokin' blunts rolled in $100 bills
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a95/discordman/ducktalesscroogemcduckswimminginmon.jpg)
$$$ BLING BLING MOTHAFUCKAS $$$
then we can spend all our time posting on the internet
ZOMFGL0LLZ0RZ
Quote from: SillyCybin on March 07, 2007, 01:53:31 PMI got a real boner for making my counter propaganda look the same as the shit I'm trying to subvert. If I was releasing a BIP or Discordia ezine it would look like 'Smash Hits' or Cosmopolitan.
hell yeah!
so we can promise "instant enlightenment" on the cover, while only having a stoopid article about "thinking for yourself" on the inside  :lol:
though one thing, unless we shamelessly copy rip off all the layout details of cosmo that's gonna be hard to equal. the content may be worthless poo but they have a professional graphic design team, as far as i've seen.
LMNO said:
> Well, that and profit sharing.
you think we're gonna make profit? i think we should at first be happy if we could offer people that worked on this some small compensation for the amount of time they put in it, but actual pay?
one thing you gotta know, i've learned from working as a freelance webdeveloper, i
always have the idea i'm ripping off the people i work for. maybe that's some low self-worth view or whatever, but it complicated things in this case.
there seems to be some kind of "switch" you need to make from "friendly talk" to "business talk", in the last case you need to talk business, you are suddenly in a battle, who can seem most reasonable while screwing the other out of as much money as to make it worthwile. this is a very stressfull situation for me always and i try to avoid it as much as possible, but of course you can't avoid it always.
and because of this stressfull fight situation in negotiations of moneys, i often seem to think i got the short end of the deal, and while completing the job, thinking very nasty things about the assignment-giver (what's the word).
the conditions under which i have produced some stuff for these places (mostly some images and some bits of one-off coding) have always been "i do this for fun" and the time i've spent on and for these boards has always been my own free (as in beer) time. this is a fine, no-obligations, friendly way of working, like the revolving door principle.
now, if people want to make a job out of it, spend some hours on it that they expect to be paid for as to make a living, i'm sure the whole deal, the atmosphere changes. well, it would for me, i used to think it wouldn't and it shouldn't, but that was before i started doing freelance work and getting my fingers dirty with my own money and fees, and now i know (besides you couldn't pay me anyways ;-) )
and i'm afraid the only way (i can think of) to avoid these problems is to simply plug back all the money (
if any) made with such a project into the next edition, making the work itself a volunteer job, and maybe perhaps with a tiny compensation, but that would probably be better spent in sending everybody a few proof-copies.
also i'd just like to point out i'm still a n00b at the job market, just been doing the freelance thing for less than a year, so maybe there are some nuances i missed out on, but most ppl i know seem to agree on the general rule: people you do business with are not your friends, (or only as long as they pay you enough)
Quote from: LHX on March 07, 2007, 03:09:26 PM
then we can spend all our time posting on the internet
ZOMFGL0LLZ0RZ
this is the correct investment portfolio :lulz:
Quote from: triple zero on March 07, 2007, 03:16:26 PM
Quote from: SillyCybin on March 07, 2007, 01:53:31 PMI got a real boner for making my counter propaganda look the same as the shit I'm trying to subvert. If I was releasing a BIP or Discordia ezine it would look like 'Smash Hits' or Cosmopolitan.
hell yeah!
so we can promise "instant enlightenment" on the cover, while only having a stoopid article about "thinking for yourself" on the inside :lol:
though one thing, unless we shamelessly copy rip off all the layout details of cosmo that's gonna be hard to equal. the content may be worthless poo but they have a professional graphic design team, as far as i've seen.
LMNO said:
> Well, that and profit sharing.
you think we're gonna make profit? i think we should at first be happy if we could offer people that worked on this some small compensation for the amount of time they put in it, but actual pay?
one thing you gotta know, i've learned from working as a freelance webdeveloper, i always have the idea i'm ripping off the people i work for. maybe that's some low self-worth view or whatever, but it complicated things in this case.
there seems to be some kind of "switch" you need to make from "friendly talk" to "business talk", in the last case you need to talk business, you are suddenly in a battle, who can seem most reasonable while screwing the other out of as much money as to make it worthwile. this is a very stressfull situation for me always and i try to avoid it as much as possible, but of course you can't avoid it always.
and because of this stressfull fight situation in negotiations of moneys, i often seem to think i got the short end of the deal, and while completing the job, thinking very nasty things about the assignment-giver (what's the word).
the conditions under which i have produced some stuff for these places (mostly some images and some bits of one-off coding) have always been "i do this for fun" and the time i've spent on and for these boards has always been my own free (as in beer) time. this is a fine, no-obligations, friendly way of working, like the revolving door principle.
now, if people want to make a job out of it, spend some hours on it that they expect to be paid for as to make a living, i'm sure the whole deal, the atmosphere changes. well, it would for me, i used to think it wouldn't and it shouldn't, but that was before i started doing freelance work and getting my fingers dirty with my own money and fees, and now i know (besides you couldn't pay me anyways ;-) )
and i'm afraid the only way (i can think of) to avoid these problems is to simply plug back all the money (if any) made with such a project into the next edition, making the work itself a volunteer job, and maybe perhaps with a tiny compensation, but that would probably be better spent in sending everybody a few proof-copies.
also i'd just like to point out i'm still a n00b at the job market, just been doing the freelance thing for less than a year, so maybe there are some nuances i missed out on, but most ppl i know seem to agree on the general rule: people you do business with are not your friends, (or only as long as they pay you enough)
Business is a game dude, just play it and try for the High$core. Your opponents are all doing the same thing. Fucking people over is weird to begin with (I can almost remember it) but it'll grow on ya. Then you're ready to go into a meeting with a bunch of suits and screw them for every penny they have.
plus its something i would want to look at myself
so there doesnt seem to be much lose in the situation
also:
some professional graphic designers lose their edge once they become 'professionals'
Quote from: SillyCybin on March 07, 2007, 03:24:09 PMBusiness is a game dude, just play it and try for the High$core. Your opponents are all doing the same thing. Fucking people over is weird to begin with (I can almost remember it) but it'll grow on ya. Then you're ready to go into a meeting with a bunch of suits and screw them for every penny they have.
i know. it just brings up a whole lot of stress for me. real bad stress. i have been overworked the past few weeks, srsly overworked because of this. fortunately i can afford myself a week of rest. but just talking here about this shit already brings the claustrophobic feeling to my chest.
in other words, i probably shouldn't be getting myself in this discussion then, eh
fuck that
i aint screwing anybody for anything
that game is done
EDIT - the game doesnt have to be played that way
not anymore
i don't want to either, so what do you propose
what we are discussing here is a relentless media generating system
people can have yesterdays shit and todays shit because the stuff the gets generated the next day is better anyway
there is nothing to be stolen
nobody to screw over
no president
no head honcho
just a train to jump on and jump off
it doesnt seem like anybody here is dumb enuf to want to accumulate money
just want to go thru it
i have no desire to prevent anybody from eating
besides - how the hell are conventional business practices gonna hold up when Open Source is becoming more and more prominent?
i aint tryin to be a dinosaur
basically with open source a company pays some guy to write software which will then be released as open source
the advantage of this is:
- company gets to use the program (first goal)
- open source community will test and debug for free (secondary goal)
- anybody can do security auditing and publish full disclosure sploits (terniary goal)
open source is not some programmer guy sitting in a basement writing brilliant software for free
---
apart from that, so you agree we should go with the model that any profit made will just be pumped back into the next edition?
i dunno how that works in the US or globally but there are certain "structures" for this type of endeavours, like "foundation" or "association" i dunno, perhaps we could even get some tax exemption for being not-for-profit.
also we have the advantage of being international, so we can just pick the best deal globally?
if not the USA there must be some other country that gets us benefit for being a religious/spiritual organisation?
all of these elements are worthy of investigation
i guess thats another aspect of discussion
if we got this system off the ground - what if somebody tried to commission somebody here to do the same for them or their company?
an independent organization that takes contracts?
if they wanna commission the entire group of "us", they're gonna have a problem (one way or another)
if they wanna commission just one of "us", they can work out the details any way they like together i think?
thats the way i see it
so the benefit of joining the work would/could be some kind of networking* opportunity
i like that
(is that an english term? = getting to know the right people getting to know you)
A lot of these bridges will be crossed when we come to them.
Quote from: triple zero on March 07, 2007, 03:54:05 PM
we should go with the model that any profit made will just be pumped back into the next edition?
I think so. There are going to be some costs, like printing. As I recall from a cheapass magazine I used to work for, if we order a set of like 1000 glossy full color magazines we can get them printed for like three bucks a pop.
(edit: that's probably a bit off - if we're interested, I can go dig up the real numbers) I think the people who throw down the benjamins for this should get reimbursed, then if there's any left, profit should be invested into further issues.. The trick here is to get advertisers.
(this is all assuming we're talking about something like a magazine, which is totally feasible)
hmmm but to whom do we sell it? How do we cover our costs?
3 bucks per mag, is that with or without advertising?
getting advertisers will be very hard without being able to show any prior work, target audience etc etc
ok we have prior work, but who's gonna compose it into a shiny portfolio?
when i made an almanac for my students-association, which is a similar audience, bunch of crazy hippies, 300-500 books A5, we asked about e300,- ($393,60) for a fullpage ad. businesses seemed to think that a reasonable price, the question being mostly if they wanted to advertise at all. and we had the advantage of being a 100% student target audience, and not .. well what do we have? fruitcakes? who? we sort of want to target everybody with half a brain, right?
anyway my point is if it's $3k for 1000 mags, we need but 10 advertisers. ah yes and then we need to spread them :) and make sure the advertisers are happy, or they will not come back.
No offence, but I don't know anyone who would pay $3 for a zine full of amateur* philosophy and/or political ranting.
*by "amateur", I mean that monkeys seem to have more respect for things written by "EXPERTS".
Okay, just got off the phone with my old editor.
We paid $3/issue because we needed a quick printing, which essentially doubled the cost. If we don't mind it taking a while to print, we can get
1000 copies of a 20-page, 4-color magazine for between $1.40 and $1.60 per copy
Fuck, I wouldn't pay the $30-$50 they charge for peer-reviewed scholarly publications.  I'd always look for it free on the net first.  
Quote from: LMNO on March 07, 2007, 04:25:37 PM
*by "amateur", I mean that monkeys seem to have more respect for things written by "EXPERTS".
The ability to pass oneself off as an expert is all that separates the expert from the layman.
- trust me on this.
1) we would
2) maybe we can find 1000 other discordians somewhere all curled up in a pineal chao
3) we are experts! there's a whole bunch of reverends, popes, we have a professor (not a protected title, i remind you) and um .. i'm triple the zero i used to be?
(sorry i think my daily dose of helpfulness just ran out)
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on March 07, 2007, 04:30:32 PM
Okay, just got off the phone with my old editor.
We paid $3/issue because we needed a quick printing, which essentially doubled the cost. If we don't mind it taking a while to print, we can get
1000 copies of a 20-page, 4-color magazine for between $1.40 and $1.60 per copy
unnggg, where do we come up with that scratch?
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on March 07, 2007, 04:30:32 PMOkay, just got off the phone with my old editor.
We paid $3/issue because we needed a quick printing, which essentially doubled the cost. If we don't mind it taking a while to print, we can get
1000 copies of a 20-page, 4-color magazine for between $1.40 and $1.60 per copy
in that case, we only need about 5 full-page advertisements. that makes sense, about 25% ads is what i see in the free house-to-house newspapers dumped through my mail every week, which are only paid for by advertising (and paid
good because they have a real good target audience, but that's besides the point here, as they also have to pay their editors)
If we were able to put together an attractive product I would have no objection to fronting one or two hundred bucks towards print. I'm sure if we put our hearts into it we can collectively scrape together enough cash to do it.
If I had $1400, I'd be buying a new recording gear.
Just saying.
i just want to say in front, i don't have that kind of money.
(and especially not for some vague project of people i hardly know over the internets, if you don't mind me saying)
but the financial side is what netaungrot knew those publishing people for right? we just need to come up with a semi-plausible plan.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on March 07, 2007, 04:35:45 PM
If we were able to put together an attractive product I would have no objection to fronting one or two hundred bucks towards print. I'm sure if we put our hearts into it we can collectively scrape together enough cash to do it.
Unfortunately there are two other beating hearts in the WHN household. Both of which I need to keep well fed so the mama heart will continue to grant me access to Funtown and the other so she doesn't try to chew my leg off, again.
Can I venture a stab at a mission statement? I'm not sure if we're talking about publishing a BIP magazine or a Discordian magazine - both have been discussed in the last few days. My intuition is that we should write a Discordian magazine that just happens to focus on the BIP and our ideasphere - that'll give us a fairly broad audience.
Discord Magazine(title pending)
Mission statement:Discord Magazine is a sampling of what's going on right now in Discordian culture. It will examine current trends and themes present in the Discordian 'stream.
Target Audience:Discordians. At present nobody knows exactly how many there are out there. Also, nobody knows how many would be willing to pay a few bucks for a magazine about their "religion". But luckily, most of them use the internets to communicate with each other, and we have total access to that.
Each issue will include something like:
- thumbnails of things happening which are relevant to the Discordian community (eris bar and grill, the Portland Discordian scene, discordian bands)
- spotlight on a cabal
- a fair amount of sermons, rants, and articles by Discordians (ie think for yourself shmuck, and now what?, fiction, BIP, etc ad nausea)
- tons of zany graphics
- interviews with prolific Discordians and their ilk (like RAWs living relatives)
Goal:The first issue will test the feasibility of such an endeavor. We intend to put together enough articles to make a 20-page magazine. After we have some substance, and some research on who might buy such a thing, we'll try to pin down advertisers to fund a printing.
If we can't come up with the resources to print, we'll publish it in PDF form. Maybe from that, we'll get the myriad Discordian commutinies foaming at the mouth and have some idea whether it'd be possible to generate capital from a printing.
:mittens:
just, whatever, congratulatory, blah, bu ti agree and it's more coherent than whatever i can write
ok
how about we add this to the mix:
lets assemble something that we ourselves would want to see first
that way - even if it turns out to be a piece of shit that doesnt go anywhere - it will have some appeal to somebody
the worst would be to produce a piece of trash that even we want no part of
i get a hard-on for some of the visual material that comes thru these boards - the large images and the slogans
so to be able to hold something tangible like that in my hands - i would be interested in doing this based on that premise alone
odds are - if it looks good it will have appeal
if it also packs philosophical substance - thats a bonus for any potential purchasers
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on March 07, 2007, 05:01:45 PM
Discord Magazine
(title pending)
I thought we'd agreed on "Threadjack"
1 - was my idea
2 - I spent all of 5mins coming up with a logo
failing that - "Freestyle Life"
1 - was also my idea
Let's face it it's either one of those or I'm gonna bitch and whine like a diva on a meth tweak and get on everyone's tits about it
Freestyle itself might be a interesting title
i like all three options actually
(not helpful)
I do like those titles. I just said Discord Magazine 'cause I forgot about Threadjack.
but the title of a magazine, especially one nobody's heard of, should indicate what the magazine is about
A Discordian should see the title and think "cool, this is relevant to me, I'll click the link"
That's not to say the title couldn't have a subtitle like
"THREADJACK: for Discordians by Discordians"
"FREESTYLE LIFE: the journal of Discordians everywhere"
"FREESTYLE: What would Eris Do?"
How 'bout Silly Cybin Monthy?!?  :stfu:
I like Freestyle Life.
Threadjack makes me think of internet shit, so i'll expect Wired.
Freestyle alone sounds like a bike magazine.
Freestyle Life is the most fitting as far as i'm concerned.
ThornIs' Pleasure Palace
Sounds like an extreme sports mag.
Quote from: LMNO on March 07, 2007, 06:02:45 PM
Sounds like an extreme sports mag.
Fuck. You're right.
I had a visions in my head at first of someone saying "Oh, live life by your own style, cool", but now that you mention it, I imagine a n00b will say "Oh cool, lets freestyle down a mountain."
Quote from: hunter s.durden on March 07, 2007, 06:00:41 PM
How 'bout Silly Cybin Monthy?!? :stfu:
We have a winner! and we keep the little angry guy too
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on March 07, 2007, 05:01:45 PM
Can I venture a stab at a mission statement? I'm not sure if we're talking about publishing a BIP magazine or a Discordian magazine - both have been discussed in the last few days. My intuition is that we should write a Discordian magazine that just happens to focus on the BIP and our ideasphere - that'll give us a fairly broad audience.
Discord Magazine
(title pending)
Mission statement:
Discord Magazine is a sampling of what's going on right now in Discordian culture. It will examine current trends and themes present in the Discordian 'stream.
Target Audience:
Discordians. At present nobody knows exactly how many there are out there. Also, nobody knows how many would be willing to pay a few bucks for a magazine about their "religion". But luckily, most of them use the internets to communicate with each other, and we have total access to that.
Each issue will include something like:
- thumbnails of things happening which are relevant to the Discordian community (eris bar and grill, the Portland Discordian scene, discordian bands)
- spotlight on a cabal
- a fair amount of sermons, rants, and articles by Discordians (ie think for yourself shmuck, and now what?, fiction, BIP, etc ad nausea)
- tons of zany graphics
- interviews with prolific Discordians and their ilk (like RAWs living relatives)
Goal:
The first issue will test the feasibility of such an endeavor. We intend to put together enough articles to make a 20-page magazine. After we have some substance, and some research on who might buy such a thing, we'll try to pin down advertisers to fund a printing.
If we can't come up with the resources to print, we'll publish it in PDF form. Maybe from that, we'll get the myriad Discordian commutinies foaming at the mouth and have some idea whether it'd be possible to generate capital from a printing.
Discordians = ludicrously small market. We should keep all the discordian themes and all, but we won't say that outright. That way we have a new recruiting (even though the idea of Discordian evangelism weirds me out a little) tool intead of a tiny niche market publication.
Well put.
Newsflash - the ammount we're talking about producing IS a tiny little niche market. There's no reason why that shouldn't work tho. Taking on the mainstream and trying to compete on equal terms with the established brands is going to get you nowhere - Joe public makes very quick decision between - mag he is programmed to spend his mag money on - and - bizarre looking amateur effort with pics of tubgirl in.
We don't have the editors or the knowledge to do this. So we stick to what we're experts in - discordia. Have a look on the magstand next time you're passing. Notice there's one copy of weedkiller monthly there always. Weedkiller monthly has a tiny circulation but it's enough to keep it in business and a viable going concern.
Weedkiller has accomplished this by analysing a tiny niche and filling it.
Now - how many Discordia Monthly's do you see there?
I smell a niche...
Key to exploiting this niche is to work out how to reach your demographic. Our demographic are discordians (anything else and we're trying to trick people into buying it and that's gonna wind up with no repeat sales)
We need to let discordians know this is a mag by them, for them. It has to be obvious from the front cover.
Apple of eris, hand of discordia, photos of RAW ....
Issue 1 needs all of these and more. Think about it - you are a discordian - what would the mag that attracts your attention away from "Tentacle Rapist" look like?
I'd use the 5 fingered hand before anything else, because it at least has an interesting concept apart from the LOLs or the RAWs.
the market is us first
everybody else by extension
- people who can afford to buy a magazine that looks good visually
- people who like the thrill of inspiration
- people who want to be associated with something 'underground' (until it becomes more fun than they really wanted)
the stuff here isnt readily available anywhere else
at least not that i know of
because if it was - then i would be there
and if not, then that means there is only roughly 20 - 30 english speaking people on this planet who are generally interested in pushing the philosophical envelope forward
(gasp)
Quote from: LMNO on March 07, 2007, 08:30:15 PM
I'd use the 5 fingered hand before anything else, because it at least has an interesting concept apart from the LOLs or the RAWs.
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/P3nT4gR4m/Threadjack.jpg)
Still pushing this one - there must be, easily, a good ten or twenty thousand forum junkies who will get this straight away.
altho its not originally what i was thinking - i like where youre coming from SC
might be interesting to give that a little trial run
maybe interesting for a issue - i dont know how much longevity it would have
Actually now that I'm thinking about it maybe Threadjack should be a column. Funniest things said in the internets this month - kinda like the drunken goose layout I did last night.
Quote from: SillyCybin on March 07, 2007, 08:56:57 PM
Actually now that I'm thinking about it maybe Threadjack should be a column. Funniest things said in the internets this month - kinda like the drunken goose layout I did last night.
Sounds like a good idea. That way we still get to put that idea in the magazine, but doesn't give the reader the impression that that sort of thing is the entire magazine.
you know, if we really wanted to be Discordian about it, we'd come up with a way to give the publication a new name every time it went to press
Quote from: vexati0n on March 07, 2007, 11:51:17 PM
you know, if we really wanted to be Discordian about it, we'd come up with a way to give the publication a new name every time it went to press
im all for it
If it has a new name...then you can't rely on recognition for "repeat offenders."
But rotating the byline/description that's underneath it, much like the "fake news" up above rotates, may work.
I say ads should be out of the question, and if people want to advertise there can be a little section in the back for all variety of things, like what 2600 has. They also make advertisers subscribe.
As for using the five fingered hand, I hope they don't think it is an astronomy magazine.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 07, 2007, 11:51:17 PMyou know, if we really wanted to be Discordian about it, we'd come up with a way to give the publication a new name every time it went to press
this sort of makes me go UNNG a littlebit inside :|
we would also need some kind of way to keep the "brand" the same, so people will recognize it still if you change the name (what Jenne said)
maybe a way to do it, is what a group of people i know did, they picked a ridiculously difficult name, and spelled it differently always everywhere [ the name was Sk????bla??nir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%AD%C3%B0bla%C3%B0nir), after some norse mythology]
Quote from: rygD on March 08, 2007, 07:02:30 AMI say ads should be out of the question, and if people want to advertise there can be a little section in the back for all variety of things, like what 2600 has. They also make advertisers subscribe.
we need ads because if we get some good ads this can bring down the cost of producing a lot. it's as simple as that. i'd rather have full-colour glossy with 25% ads than some photocopied stapled stack of paper like the old PD was.
not specifically because i really prefer one over the other (paper's paper and i can read it) but mostly
because we already have a shitload of the shitty photocopied stapled pamphlets and trying to do something newalso, i wonder what kind of company would advertise in such a mag, and i think we might get some pretty funny/interesting ads at that. hey maybe we can even strike a deal that some of us design a few of the ads for them.
would the CotSG perhaps like an ad? they've got money ;-)
QuoteAs for using the five fingered hand, I hope they don't think it is an astronomy magazine.
please tell me you know the difference between astronomy and astrology.
Quote from: LHX on March 07, 2007, 03:09:26 PM
ZOMFGL0LLZ0RZ
Yes.
I'll compose my thoughts on this groundswell ASAP.
Alls I've got time for is I see you and HOLY FUCK!
Quote from: triple zero on March 08, 2007, 08:42:27 AM
QuoteAs for using the five fingered hand, I hope they don't think it is an astronomy magazine.
please tell me you know the difference between astronomy and astrology.
I do, that is why I said it. I seem to reading about there being a somewhat planet-like thing way the fuck out in our solar system that astronomers were thinking about using either the five fingered hand or a simplified eye of providence as the symbol for.
I, for some reason, feel that advertising in this magazine would be like selling ourselves in the bad way. There are many non-profit organisations out there that are ad free. If ads are really needed then they do need to fit the feel of the material in the magazine, and be from like minded companies and such.
It's official: rygD is offering to pay for all publication and distribution costs.
Only if I get to whore myself out, too.
Sorry but it's official. No changing of the conditions after the fact.
creditcard details plz.
Hellooooooo, glossy stock!
just had an idea, i think we need to redo the old PD gag
[lick here--you might be one of the lucky 25]
'cause i just thought that was very funny.
That was a gag!?
uh, i sort of thought they were trying to imply that you might get one of the "lucky" 25 PDs spiked with LSD or something?
or was it something deep and zenarchistic that i completely missed
I'm just fucking with you.
I used to do the same thing on flyers for my shows.
I don't have a credit card. I don't have credit.
ok, I licked, however aside from having a tongue print on my screen, I don't see why I licked there?
Appointment with business people cancelled. They were overbooked, and so was I.
Looks like we could use a couple more days to get a bit more of our ideas out and analyzed anyway.
From the brief discussion I had with them, we ought to focus on what specifically we provide to people, and research what people with a similar or identical objective have successfully accomplished.
They don't think our rag-tag disorganization and disparate locales are insurmountable obstacles either.
More as it comes...
am i correct to presume that our main attractions are
- that we already have large bodies of text archived
- ability to write lots more on very short notice
- good graphics design capabilities
- many hands make light work
- (miss anything?)
when dealing in business it's always good to know what the other party sees in you
Resources to be exploited, is my guess.
I'd much rather somone was exploiting my ability to write bollix and photoshop stupid pictures together than the way it is now - someone exploiting my ability to endure boredom.
Quote from: LMNO on March 08, 2007, 02:42:37 PM
I'm just fucking with you.
I used to do the same thing on flyers for my shows.
How many did you post in urine-stained alleys?