THANKS OBAMA
lol what
Isn’t that like turning Home and Garden magazine into a publication about fishing?
Something close already exists:
I guess that didn’t work. Here’s the link to Garden and Gun magazine:
BTW, this is one of the fastest growing publications, I’ve been told, and the ad space is very expensive. It’s a very successful magazine.
The article mentions free porn being a click away as some kind of reason. No I don’t think so. I think it’s because ‘the girl next door’ is uploading her own pictures and cam video now. Young men can see real women or the Playboy fake blonde/fake breasts style of manufactured girl next door, and it’s no contest who is going to win that. In much the same way the music and movie industries refused to deviate from their old business models, and so iTunes and Netflix were made and owned by outsiders, Playboy refused to modernize. Sites like MFC and Chaturbate should have been developed by Playboy and stocked with Playboy models long ago. Of course that would mean Playboy would have morphed into a different business but they are having to do that anyways now. At least if they had done it way back when they’d be a hell of a lot wealthier at this point.
Yeah, at first I thought, why would anybody buy it then? But then I thought, why would I buy it anyways? If I wanted to see women’s breasts they are a click away on my smartphone which I carry around everywhere with me. Who would pay $10 (or whatever it costs) to see something that stopped being relevant probably about when I got into high school in 1993? This way they’ll be able to increase their audience by becoming something that people who do only read the articles want. Playboy probably has a lot more cachet than a magazine like Maxim.
I think the only Playboy i ever looked at (because the articles were not as interesting?) was like a 1982 edition, in a friends dads ‘special books’ section said friend had discovered.
From then on it was ‘readers wives’ all the way in terms of uk porn, as i never wanted to buy them myself, and i guess my circle of friends was pretty rough?
Still uk porn insight aside, is this purely an elderly Heffner (that’s the guy isn’t it?) maybe getting cajoled by all those energetic 20 somethings he surrounds himself with? Maybe there has been a coup at Heffner HQ?
I don’t think so. This is one of those rare cases where I think the official statement is probably pretty accurate to the reality.
Why would anyone pay to buy a dead tree version of pictures of naked ladies? The answer is: they wouldn’t. That the magazine has circulation still in the 100’s of thousands surprises me actually.
That said the NYT article lists some of the people who have written for Playboy, and there are some fairly distinguished writers there. Personally I’ve never actually read anything playboy, so I have no idea of the quality of writing they’ve had. I know the old joke about ‘reading it for the articles’, but had no idea of if this was actually a real thing.
Magazines in general are in hard times, so I have no idea of how this will work for them. The name has some cachet, but would people go there for writings? It seems like the move is acknowledging that the original purpose of the magazine (naked pictures) no longer makes financial sense, and the move is targeted at making them more social media friendly. I can buy it. It’s actually a quite candid admission, and one that does seem to hold up. Make the magazine one people are more willing and able to share on Facebook and Twitter, and try and catch some of that viral market.
Will it work? I doubt even they know. But it is a bold move,though the safe play likely condemned them to further obscurity.
Anyone wondering why Playboy would do this need only refer to this bit further into the New York Times article:
In August of last year, its website dispensed with nudity. As a result, Playboy executives said, the average age of its reader dropped from 47 to just over 30, and its web traffic jumped to about 16 million from about four million unique users per month.
-Tom
So basically, the goal is to get rid of dirty old men ;)
It makes sense… no one reads playboy for porn any more. It no longer serves that purpose, so it’s gotta do something else.
Playboy has had terrific and informative articles throughout its publication.
Yes, the “Girls of X University” pictures were good too, but as others have said nekkid women are a click away on the internet.
- Take the text of a article of playboy
- Convert a naked lady image to ascii art
- Replace the original characters with the text of playbody
- ???
The conversion of Playboy to a ‘lifestyle’ magazine without the pornographic stigma makes a lot of sense to me.
We live in the future!
Is possible to have one of this (a supercomputer) in your pockets when you go to the bathroom.
Unfortunately, a side effect of easy reachable porn is that a magazine like Playboy have to evolve.
It’s an understandable move as the ‘naked women’ part of Playboy has been lagging behind to other offerings for over a decade now. If you just want to ogle nude models there are vastly superior choices that don’t involve articles you don’t care about reading.
I haven’t read it in many years, but as I recall, Playboy really did have great articles, but they were overshadowed by the nudity. This is a very smart move.
Transforming themselves into “Vice for age 30+ with jobs” is a tall order, though.
And besides, I don’t understand why Vice is supposed to be for people in their 20s only. I really enjoy their content, and I’m in my late 30s and gainfully employed.
What’s the big ship’s-wheel for on the console. do you suppose? And what is displayed on the monitor?
I thought the magazine had folded long ago. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a copy of one. Late-90’s maybe? That said, a couple of convenience stores close to my work still sell the cellophane wrapped bundles of random nudie mags behind their counters, so there must still be a market for the poor internetless porn-needing souls out there.
On a semi-related tangent: Maxim hired Kate Lanphere as EiC last year, who has made some interesting changes - less frat-boy, more GQ.