Why can't magazines get the Web?

Some magazine publishers are tiptoeing into the brave new world by converting print titles into exclusively online venues. Hearst recently announced that its last print issue of CosmoGirl will appear in December, and that afterward the magazine will appear exclusively online; ditto for Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.'s ELLE Girl. Time Inc. did the same when it shut down Teen People.

But those moves smack of desperation, not strategy. Many magazine editors seem to believe that digital is the future but are grappling with how to make it viable in the present. The burning question: How can crown-jewel publications like Vogue and Vanity Fair be made as profitable online as they were as peak-performing print publications?

The predominant—and unhappy—answer is that it's probably not possible, at least not right away. While advertisers are increasingly interested in online platforms, an Internet-ad dollar is still not the same as a print-ad dollar. The price of advertising is measured in CPM, or cost per thousand readers; one media expert estimates that online CPM is worth between one-seventh and one-tenth of a print CPM.

This means that swapping out online-for-print publication right now literally amounts to trading in dollars for pennies—which is hardly an alluring prospect for publishing companies used to commanding lavish ad revenues.

"No one has figured out how to make real money from online content," says Glynnis MacNichol, editor of Mediabistro.com's FishbowlNY. "The print ad structure can't keep up with the technology. Right now we're still in the Wild West. That said, it's inevitable that someone will figure out how to make a ton of money out of this."

Indeed, a new generation of online publishers is hell-bent on finding new ways to advertise effectively online, going beyond the irritating banners and buttons that blink along the edges of Web sites now.