Magazines know that they can’t ignore the World Wide Web, but few of them are doing well there. Of the 100 leading print magazines in the United States, only 27 appear on the list1 of the 3,000 most-visited Web sites. Nonetheless, the Web offers a natural extension to the intimate relationship between magazines and their print readers. A strong magazine, at its core, isn’t just paper and ink; it is a powerful voice that should attract readers across a range of mass media. But to use the Web successfully, magazines need a sound grasp of economic reality.
How can they develop plans for their on-line incarnations?2 The bad news is that most magazines probably will never make money with a Web site—though they would be foolish not to build one. The good news is that the benefits of a Web site can be substantial and the costs can be contained.
What are the options?
For defensive and offensive reasons alike, magazines must come to grips with the Web. First, the defensive logic: readers expect magazines to be on-line, for almost half of the population of the United States is now on the Web, and its penetration continues...