In the next year, not one, but two shopping magazines will begin publishing what they hope will function as catalogs. [New York Times: Business]
In my mind this is ridiculous. I think these magazines and Lucky for women would be better off as consumer controlled circulation issues. Why do I want to pay for this?? It’s like buying the sharper image catalog at the newsstand. Well Sony does sell their SonyStyle magalog… though I would never choose to buy it. They should be giving it away – or paying us to have it with incentives, like discounts for direct purchase.
This is almost as ridiculous as adding actual commercials to movie pre-screen advertainment. This coming year, we’ll be fortunate enough to pay 10.25 for this opportunity in NYC.
As I’ve ranted previously, if you add commercials to premium content, the price should be reduced. HBO does not run commercials for anything other than what you might also enjoy on the network. We should expect the same at the movie theater where it costs as much for one sitting as it does to have 2 premium cable channels added to your bill each month.