Happy Birthday Us!

Posted by Paul Cloutier on 23 June 2007 (8020 Media)

It's 8020 Publishing's 1 year birthday! When we started in June of 2006, we knew we had a lot ahead of us, but lot of stuff has happened in just one year:

We have seen the successful launch of JPG, which in just 7 months has reached a paid circulation of 15,000, 75,000 registered members, an average newsstand sell-through of 70% (which is twice the industry average) and 5 million page-views a month. But we are most proud of the incredible work that has come from the community: work we never expected, truly amazing work that is redefining what photography means, and may otherwise never have been published.

We have won the Circulation Innovation of the Year award and a gold award for audience development. This was a great coup for us, since it is recognition from within the industry that we really are revolutionizing publishing.

We are about to launch our second magazine, Everywhere, a travel title aimed at approachable, authentic experiences. We think this is going to be huge, building on the success of JPG and breaking down the barriers to entry in another publishing market.

We've grown: there are now 9 of us, enough for a baseball team and just the right size to make pint nights memorable.

And we have finally, officially launched the 8020 Publishing site. For the last year we have had our heads down working on JPG and Everywhere, but the time came for us to work on a more permanent home. Now we can show off the team, the magazines and talk about what we're up to and where we think the publishing industry is going.

So have a look around, meet the team, and check back soon to see where we go next.

Circulation Innovation of the Year Award

Posted by Paul Cloutier on 7 June 2007 (8020 Media)

As web people, we know that when people are passionate about communities, their collective voice brings huge amounts of attention and traffic to those sites. Some people look at this as a tactic, often under the umbrella term called viral marketing, but this is actually just a core part of what happens naturally in a healthy and engaged community.

So it was great to hear that we had won the Best Use of Viral Marketing award from the Circulation Innovation Awards this week. But we were especially pleased to hear that we had also won the overall Circulation Innovation of the Year Award, which recognizes innovation in audience development for magazines. It was a pretty nice surprise for us since we were the small guys up against some of the most established publishing companies in the business.

We think a modern publishing and media company has to embrace its audience and the web as central parts of how magazines get made, and this is a great recognition from within the industry that we really are revolutionizing the publishing industry.

So, thanks again to all of the community, these awards really reflect the work that they have all done in helping make JPG and 8020 Publishing great.