Magazines vs. Digital Startups

Simon Dumenco (of AdAge) has a question: Would you rather own a magazine, or a digital startup? He notes that some magazines are making real money these days, including Marie Claire, even as most digital startups fail. Old Media isn’t sexy, he says, but “a lot of magazines continue to be not only damn good businesses, but are doing better than ever.”

I don’t know about the better-than-ever thing: I’d need to see some numbers before I was persuaded on that front. At any given point in time, statistically speaking, some small set of magazines is going to be having a