Playboy puts entire 57 years of issues online
Source: Agencies |
May 20, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GOOD news for those who thought their copies of Playboy were gone forever when their moms found them and threw them away.
Playboy put back issues of its entire 57 years of magazines online yesterday. Called i.Playboy.com, the website allows viewers to see every single page of every single magazine - from the first issue nearly 60 years ago that featured Marilyn Monroe to the ones hitting the newsstands today.
"They no longer have to store 57 years - 682 issues - of Playboy under their mattress," said Jimmy Jellinek, Playboy's chief content officer.
Chicago-based Playboy has seen its circulation plummet from 3.15 million in 2006 to 1.5 million today and has been trying all sorts of gimmicks to attract readers in recent years. One issue, for example, included a set of 3D glasses to better see a centerfold shot in 3D; another turned over the cover to a cartoon character, Marge Simpson.
But if those moves were widely viewed as efforts to attract a younger audience, this one is also aimed at baby boomers and even their parents, who might recall pictorials of long gone movie stars, interviews with the likes of John Lennon and Dr Martin Luther King and the time former President Jimmy Carter famously revealed the lust in his heart.
And for those who have claimed they bought the magazine for the articles, the online service also offers a way to look at the works of such writers as John Updike, Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer just by typing in their names.
Jellinek is optimistic people will pony up the US$8 per month or US$60 per year for a service that's "meant to appeal to that sense of collective nostalgia and affinity." He calls the website "the world's sexiest time machine" and "an anthology of cool" for a magazine he refers to as "the Mount Rushmore of literary greatness."
But one industry analyst makes Playboy sound more like a tired, dusty half-empty amusement park.
"The problem with Playboy is it not only lost its powerful interviews, but it lost its lead," said Samir Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism. "This is no longer the 50s and 60s when people talked about the interviews. And who cannot see the girl next door naked in this day and age?"
Husni doubts the service will help the company at all.
"The questions are: 'Do I need it? Do I want it? Is it relevant to me?'" Husni said. "The answer is: 'No, no and no.'"
Husni also said it is likely those who do subscribe will drop the service once they see whatever issues they were curious about. Jellinek concedes the move is an experiment.
Playboy put back issues of its entire 57 years of magazines online yesterday. Called i.Playboy.com, the website allows viewers to see every single page of every single magazine - from the first issue nearly 60 years ago that featured Marilyn Monroe to the ones hitting the newsstands today.
"They no longer have to store 57 years - 682 issues - of Playboy under their mattress," said Jimmy Jellinek, Playboy's chief content officer.
Chicago-based Playboy has seen its circulation plummet from 3.15 million in 2006 to 1.5 million today and has been trying all sorts of gimmicks to attract readers in recent years. One issue, for example, included a set of 3D glasses to better see a centerfold shot in 3D; another turned over the cover to a cartoon character, Marge Simpson.
But if those moves were widely viewed as efforts to attract a younger audience, this one is also aimed at baby boomers and even their parents, who might recall pictorials of long gone movie stars, interviews with the likes of John Lennon and Dr Martin Luther King and the time former President Jimmy Carter famously revealed the lust in his heart.
And for those who have claimed they bought the magazine for the articles, the online service also offers a way to look at the works of such writers as John Updike, Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer just by typing in their names.
Jellinek is optimistic people will pony up the US$8 per month or US$60 per year for a service that's "meant to appeal to that sense of collective nostalgia and affinity." He calls the website "the world's sexiest time machine" and "an anthology of cool" for a magazine he refers to as "the Mount Rushmore of literary greatness."
But one industry analyst makes Playboy sound more like a tired, dusty half-empty amusement park.
"The problem with Playboy is it not only lost its powerful interviews, but it lost its lead," said Samir Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism. "This is no longer the 50s and 60s when people talked about the interviews. And who cannot see the girl next door naked in this day and age?"
Husni doubts the service will help the company at all.
"The questions are: 'Do I need it? Do I want it? Is it relevant to me?'" Husni said. "The answer is: 'No, no and no.'"
Husni also said it is likely those who do subscribe will drop the service once they see whatever issues they were curious about. Jellinek concedes the move is an experiment.
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