Newsweek and Virtual Communications Launch "Virtual City", a Cyberspace Lifestyle Magazine

Newsweek and Virtual Communications, a San Francisco-based company, have announced the launch of "Virtual City", a new mass-market lifestyle magazine designed to make cyberspace accessible to everyone. The magazine will target active and prospective users of online and interactive services, providing advertisers with access to a technologically-savvy community of high-income individuals between 30 and 45 years old. Virtual City will focus on the information coming in through the screen, covering the good, the bad, and the ugly, and serving as a guide to help people live, work, and play in the interactive world.

Key Takeaways:

• Virtual City is a joint venture between Newsweek Inc. and Virtual Communications Inc., and will be a quarterly magazine with a cover price of $2.95.
• The magazine will have a distribution of approximately 300,000 copies, and selected stories will also be published in Newsweek's "Business Plus" demographic edition, which reaches one million of Newsweek's three million U.S. subscribers.
• Virtual City's audience will be active and prospective users of online and interactive services, providing advertisers with access to a technologically-savvy community of high-income individuals between 30 and 45 years old.
• Newsweek devotes more editorial pages to coverage of technology than any other news magazine, according to Hall's Reports.
• Newsweek's U.S. audience of 21 million people includes more technology "influencers" -- people with input on decisions to buy computers and software at work and at home -- than any major computer magazine, according to the 1994 IntelliQuest Computer Industry Media Survey.
• Virtual City will serve the online community the way big-city magazines serve their readers, informing them about diversity and opportunity in their environment through fast-paced news items, thoughtful and in-depth features, and extensive listings and reviews in the back.

Statistics:

• Approximately 300,000 copies of Virtual City will be distributed with a cover price of $2.95.
• Newsweek's U.S. audience of 21 million people includes more technology "influencers" -- people with input on decisions to buy computers and software at work and at home -- than any major computer magazine, according to the 1994 IntelliQuest Computer Industry Media Survey.
• Newsweek devotes more editorial pages to coverage of technology than any other news magazine, according to Hall's Reports.
• By the end of 1995, an estimated 10 million users will be connected to online services, including 7.2 million to the proprietary online services and 2.8 million to the Internet's World Wide Web, according to Forrester Research Inc.
• By the year 2000, Forrester projects that 28.7 million users will be connected, including 6.7 million to the proprietary services and nearly 22 million to the Web, of which 14.1 million will be individual consumers and 7.8 million will be corporate users.

Sources:

• Newsweek
• Virtual Communications
• Forrester Research Inc.
• IntelliQuest Computer Industry Media Survey
• Hall's Reports
• Link Resources
• Washington Post Co.