HP's MagCloud: The Greatest, or Dumbest, Idea Ever

(MoneyWatch)  Apparently, the problem with print publishing is that it needs to be democratized. That, at least, is the takeaway I gleaned from an excerpt from a speech given yesterday at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual conference by Mike Mendenhall, CMO of Hewlett-Packard. (They sell a lot of printers, doncha know?)

In it, he talks about Magcloud, a recently-launched site from HP which, "allows anyone to publish a professional quality magazine, print, sell and deliver it on demand." And you thought print was dead.

Well, maybe it still is. After listening to Mendenhall talk about Magcloud, I can't decide whether it's the greatest, or dumbest, idea I've ever heard, so, let's walk though both arguments.

This Is the Greatest Idea Ever: For obvious reasons, I'll let Mendenhall do the talking here:

We custom print each order, when it's ordered, and that means no large print runs and not a lot of the pre-publication costs, and no waste. And it has become economically viable and more environmentally friendly and sustainable to produce a magazine now for a thousand, for a hundred, or for even one. Publishers can sell the ad space to drive down the cost per issue and generate revenue. And there's a long tail effect here. With thousands of magazines in any given niche, advertisers can access a significantly highly-targeted audience, affordably.

Cool. So now publishers can actually perform accurate print runs and get rid of a lot of the onerous costs that are holding them down, and advertisers are guaranteed that they are buying only those readers who truly have a passion for that niche. Would love to see the numbers crunched, but by bringing new efficiencies to print, just maybe magazines can survive.

This Is the Dumbest Idea Ever: It's not print that wants to be democratized, it's information that wants to be democratized, and it already has been, on this thing called the Internet. What blogger worth his or her flannel pajamas would spend the time and effort to actually kill a few trees and have something printed? And is reading something in print what the audience really wants? If they did, they would still be reading newspapers.

OK, now it's up to you to tell me where you come out on this one.