Once upon a time, JPG Magazine was a good idea. It was also a new idea. Derek Powazek and Heather Champ were all in, and the future looked bright. But things– as they are wont to do–changed. Derek and Heather walked away, the economy spun backwards on its axis and now JPG Magazine is folding. Maybe.
TechCrunch says, “It’s not a good time to be a print magazine right now. Even a crowdsourced magazine with a stripped-down staff that relies on the contributions of its more talented readers.”
This marks a blow for consumer-generated media. The magazine’s problems may have zero to do with the CGM model, but it’s a hit nevertheless.
TechCrunch has more:
In reality, the print magazine was nothing but an artifact of the Website and the community that created it. The value of JPG was in the online portion–the process by which the best photographs were commissioned, curated, and selected with the help of other reader-photographers. It is a model that I believe we will see more of in the future because talent is everywhere. We just need a better way of finding and highlighting the very best of it.
That’s interesting. We need a better way to find and highlight the best commissioned and curated content. There are opportunities everywhere I look!
