Look What I Made!

That's right... the buttermilk cake from the front of this months' Masterchef Magazine!
You can find the recipe within the issue...
(Not exactly within the scope of this blog, but I wanted to share this with you!)

Digital Magazines - Is the Price Right?

I've been noticing the increased availability of digital magazines, which are available via outlets such as the iTunes store (Magshop) and Zinio ("the world's largest digital newsstand").

I like that digital magazines are a modern way to indulge your interests and offer features that traditional print media cannot. For example, the Masterchef Magazine iPad app also offers the reader interactive features such as video, behind-the-scenes footage and "Cook Mode", which enables recipes to be displayed in a larger font for use in the kitchen (ballsy move against the underwhelming Telstra T-Hub?).

 

However, I find myself questioning the pricing behind digital magazines, and considered the following points:

• I feel as though a part of the price consumers pay for printed magazines is partially to have a tangible product in hand (likewise with newspapers). Digital magazines are often hefty downloads and can be can be priced very similarly to its printed counterpart.  Sure, where the digital version doesn't deliver on the 'tangibility USP', it delivers value via other features such as the interactive options mentioned above. Still, does this merit the price of the digital product? Isn't it possible that there are other ways to entertain one's interest? One way could be through other apps, which arguably don't interrupt the consumer with as many advertisements as a magazine has the potential to do.
• I feel the digital costs aren't as justified as it is often a case of uploading and leveraging off the outputs of the printed version.
• I suspect that digital magazines are an approach to boost slipping readership and circulation rates of traditional print media (including newspapers), but this trend may face its own problems if  the digital version is perceived as too expensive to download.
• On the other hand, I understand that the connotations of lowering a product's price and how it can affect its brand positioning. (Significant discounts of Gourmet Traveller may not reflect its brand values.) Also, magazine publishers would also need to recoup their costs and maintain margins despite shifts in consumption habits.
• A printed issue of Masterchef Magazine costs $4.95. According to the iTunes store, the current and two latest back issues are priced at $2.99. With the digital version costing 40% less than the printed version, the deliverance of value may be achieved. As someone who has a subscription to Masterchef magazine, I would certainly be pleased if this was offered to me as a type of "gift with purchase". Think of what this can do to increase long-term usage and loyalty!

The digital front cover of the current issue of Masterchef Magazine is nearly identical to the print version (shown), except the digital version obviously does not show the barcode and the price.

Overall I'm still sceptical about the cost of digital magazines. I don't feel they should be free, but would prefer to see them offered as such when the consumer has purchased the printed version.


What do you think?

Food Porn, Forkly and Foodspotting... Not Weird Erotic Terms, But Social Dining!

Recently I've become engaged with social dining sites, in fact I'm sheepish I didn't find these sooner!

Applications such as Foodspotting and the recently- launched Forkly stimulate my hunger and expand my appreciation of beautiful-looking food. They are also useful ways to capture, rate (or 'nom') and upload images of individual meals and share them with others beyond the dining table via other SM platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, all with the incentive of gaining status and rankings similar to Foursquare.

Some things to note:

• These sites are based on the notion of communicating only stellar dishes - not an avenue for consumers to complain about their dodgy satay beef or crappy service. I think I like this feature, sometimes I get tired of hearing scorned customers' complaints and just want to know what's good to eat.
• As inspired by previous entries and their comments, I wonder if establishment owners would use this as an opportunity to show off their 'edible art' incognito. I think I would be tempted...
• As someone who has the annoying habit of taking photos of food when it arrives to the table, I now have somewhere to put them. It feels like the "time-poor man's" option of blogging. See my first entry submitted below from a local cafe in the Western suburbs (which on a side note, is highly recommended!):

You can view Forkly's YouTube video describing their attributes below.

What do you think of this trend of social dining... apart from feeling famished?

Sheep, Ghosts and Twitter...

Twitter has become a haven for celebrities to join the blogosphere, with personalities such as Kevin Rudd, Ozzy Osbourne and Donald Trump getting on the bandwagon. In fact, following celebrities seems like a great way to get started on Twitter, compared to Facebook where the first thing you might look for are your mates.

According to Case and King (2011), some celebrity tweeters (e.g. Britney Spears and Barack Obama) have hired ghostwriters to pen their tweets to compensate their busy schedules. This is interesting because these two celebs are reportedly included in the "Top 10" of tweeters based on follower numbers. However I don't suspect whether their followers wholeheartedly care whether their tweets were directly supplied without middlemen, but why not? Is it because their followers have realistic expectations about who is really administering the tweet... or does this inspire the follower/fan to feel disappointed?

I considered whether other celebrities utilise ghostwriters to tweet on their behalf. Being interested in food I considered (celebrity) chef Giada De Laurentiis. With a number of TV shows on the Food Network (or Lifestyle Food on Foxtel here in Australia), she certainly is a busy bee on Twitter, building a relationship with her some 2,800 followers. I have shown a snapshot of her activity over a ten-hour period below. You can see that a great deal of the content is used in two-way conversation with her followers, but I wonder if it is really her? I think I'd feel indifferent either way...

Do I dare ask, does Giada really have that much time on her hands? Or perhaps it is becoming more common for celebs to enlist specialists to help grow their online presence and reach audiences... what do you think?

Oh, and if anyone wants to enlighten me on the proper terminology for "someone who tweets", be it tweeter, twitterer, or even twit, please drop me a line.

References:

Case, C. J., and King, D. L. (2011) "Twitter Usage in the Fortune 50: A Marketing Opportunity?" Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 5(3), 94-103.