A new lads’ magazine for internet surfers, Crazynet, promises to
introduce readers to the best babe-filled and bizarre sites on the
web.
The monthly, edited by ex-Bizarre managing editor, James Wallis,
launched last week with a 70,000 print run and a settle-down sales
target of 25,000 to 30,000. The cover price is pounds 2.99.
The sales house, Westside Publishing, is selling the ads for a target
audience of 15- to 25-year-old male internet users. The 100-page first
issue carries full-page ads for FreeUK.com, Sony mobile phones, Freeway
and Rock Sound (the publisher’s other magazines) and several fashion
brands.
Internet-related advertising and computer games will form the core
advertiser targets although fashion and drinks categories are medium- to
long-term goals.
’The more lifestyle approach of the editorial makes these goals
feasible,’ said Westside’s Charles McCrostie. ’But those advertisers
will require ABC and NRS data, whereas it is easier to persuade
net-related advertisers to come aboard.’
Crazynet prints images from chosen sites and includes web clips of those
sites on a cover-mounted CD-Rom. This, it claims, differentiates it from
competitors such as Haymarket’s The Net and Emap Active’s Internet.
The first issue features the new Bond girl, Denise Richards, Sarah
Michelle Gellar and a virtual babe, Webbie Tookay. It also has a feature
headlined: ’Ready, willing and almost lifelike,’ about a Californian
company that manufactures ’Realdolls’, life-size sex toys moulded from
silicone.
Another feature documents a website that sells human skulls. ’This is
the finest shop window for human skulls we’ve ever seen,’ states the
magazine.
Although the title could be described as a listings guide to the bizarre
side of the web, publisher Patrick Napier insisted Crazynet is more akin
to Heat or Empire than TV Times or Radio Times.
’We are offering entertainment rather than a guide to the net,’ said
Napier. ’You could read it on a train and never go near a computer.’
Despite the Bizarre connection, Napier said: ’We will provide the more
extreme stuff on the web as well as just the funny - but we won’t be
aping Bizarre.’
Crazynet is the UK version of Micro Dingo which sells 35,000 in
France.
It is published by Freeway Press which publishes two other UK versions
of French titles - Rock Sound and Freeway, a custom bike magazine. Micro
Dingo’s publisher, Pressimage, has taken a 50 per cent stake in Freeway
Press.
Emap Active’s Internet recorded a January to June ABC of 47,192. The Net
launched in June this year.
