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Kiran Aditham
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Kiran Aditham is a Business Management grad from the University of Central Florida, Aditham earned his stripes as a freelance writer in music/arts publishing.

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Publishing’s Paradigm Shift: FADER Co-Founder Rob Stone Eyes Print’s Place in the Digital Revolution

Written on
October 5th 2006
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by Kiran Aditham  |
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Were you unsure as to how the iTunes edition would be received? It’s a pretty big move hooking up with them. Was this something you guys were just trying as a trial run or was it something you guys had calculated all along?

Yeah, there was some trepidation. We’ve had a lot of discussions up here and something [Cornerstone co-president] Jon [Cohen] and I always say is the reason why we seem to do well as a company is [because of] the people we have up here. We trust them and we have open conversations. You know, we didn’t go out and do research and studies and focus groups. We didn’t do anything formal in that sense, but you’ve met Jon and you know me. We’re sponges for what’s going on out there. Our staff is very involved in technology and culture and the way things are going. We have a lot of tentacles.

I think what we really do well is, we took in all this information of everything going on out there and sort of put it through the Cornerstone/FADER processor. I think it was a risky move to do, but that’s what I think it’s about, especially in the technology space. We’ve seen the challenges the music industry faced. I read something [Wired magazine writer] Andy Grove had talked about and he had just felt things could have been different or we might be able to create a different music space if the music industry embraced and spent money on research and development into the technology as opposed to the way it went down. If they came to the table with Steve Jobs early on, would it be different?

What they could have done differently was probably invested in the research and development, not for the fact that it helps other people build their business, but in a sense, to be at the table when the new rules get written. I think that mentality of wanting to be at the table and having a voice, because in a sense the way it went down, the technology people had the voice in how the rules were written and not the content holders. But I think now we’re seeing a struggle for how the rules get written.

Especially in the music industry, there’s that struggle to keep the old infrastructure and model. I think some companies are hesitant to try, as you said, research and development and fully immerse themselves in the digital space.

We weigh a lot of factors. You look at the habits of the 15-19 year old or the 12-16 year old compared to the 21-24 year old or the 25-59 year old. It really is amazing seeing the breakdown and some of it is economics, but some of it is just habits and how you grow up. I remember coming into the music business where people talked about vinyl and artwork and ‘you need to experience it that way’. I was with the generation of the tail-end of cassettes, turning into CDs, and now you see downloads. Some kids, to them, music is a file. It never existed in the tangible space.

So, when we started looking at that and just the long-winded answer back to the whole idea of why we’re trying this is because we see habits changing and we are at 90,000 served with the Fader print medium. We’d love to see our subscription base explode online through iTunes. Right now, it’s a free service. At some point, do we start charging for it? Potentially.

But we’re seeing it the smart companies now combining their thoughts on their media spend, so it’s not about, “Here’s our print budget, here’s our online budget.” It’s more, “Here’s our budget. Let’s figure out how to maximize what we’re doing in both the spaces and make sure that we have a holistic approach and things are connecting and that we’re surrounding the consumer that we’re trying to reach.”

That’s the big point I think of The FADER, that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to serve it up any way the consumer wants it. We’re not of the belief that giving it to them diminishes the value. The value’s in the sophistication, the photography, the writing, the ideas, being ahead of the curve. Those are the things that separate us.

One would kind of be naive to think that people that wouldn’t adapt to this additional online format of the magazine. There’s a whole demographic there that grew up on the ‘Net, so the audience is already built-in.

It’s amazing…I’m 38 and I could never foresee not having a home telephone number, but I know a lot of twentysomethings don’t have a home telephone number. It’s just a different mindset. The first thing I do in the mornings is turn on my computer and check what’s on the New York Times even though the paper is sitting right outside my door. It’s just an easier move for me.

It is a nice feeling of having the paper there, but you end up going online anyways.

The reason for me is that I love reading the paper. I don’t know if the computer will ever replace it for me, but if I didn’t grow up reading the paper, I might very easily be able to get all of my news online.

I still like that whole tangibility aspect that you have something on the train or especially here in New York, when you’re en route, I’m not opening up my laptop on the N train. So having that tangible copy of a paper, is that something you see ever fading out? It seems to me that there’s a growing audience that is just as willing to pull out their PDAs and read the paper.

Look, I love the online [FADER] version and the PDF looks beautiful on the 20-inch monitor I have in my office. It looks incredible. I can even put it up on my 42-inch screen if I want to look at it. But there’s still an appreciation and I guess an emotional connection to the print version and really seeing the photography on paper. There’s an art to printing and we spend a lot of money and resources on making sure the magazine looks as good as it does and that the quality is there. Not a lot of magazines have that in their favor. A lot of magazines print on very thin paper, the colors bleed very easily, and the paper doesn’t hold the color. But we have vibrant photos and I think that makes a huge difference to people.

I think the ability to be on the train reading it or lying down in your bed or indisposed or wherever you do your reading, makes a big difference in having a printed copy. I don’t think it goes away and even though you can go virtual search for articles online and have RSS feed, it’s still exciting to me walking into a magazine shop or spending a half-hour at Barnes & Noble. It’s great.



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