A large multimedia step

Aug. 2, 2010
First a description of what's happening with Oil & Gas Journal, then the reasons for this large multimedia step forward…

First a description of what's happening with Oil & Gas Journal, then the reasons for this large multimedia step forward…

Contrary to rumors, OGJ is not changing its frequency. It continues to be published weekly. Indeed, it is reverting to weekly frequency after several years during which it didn't appear on fifth Mondays in months that had them. Most years have three such months.

From this issue forward, however, the printed magazine will appear only on the first Monday each month. On Mondays other than the first, OGJ will be delivered electronically.

Obviously, the printed magazine has changed. It contains many more pages and articles than the weekly magazine has until now. And it has been redesigned, with new type fonts, layout patterns, and cover styles.

Organization of the magazine hasn't changed. The main sections are still the Newsletter, General Interest, and specialist sections including Exploration & Development, Drilling & Production, Processing, Transportation, and Statistics. Interspersed within that organization are the columns: Journally Speaking, Editorial, Watching Government, Watching the World, Editor's Perspective, and Market Journal.

What's in print

The print magazine gains pages because the specialist sections, except for Statistics, now contain what until now would have been a month's worth of material.

On Mondays other than the first one of the month, subscribers will receive OGJ via e-mail in an interactive electronic form. Many OGJ subscribers have received the magazine in this format for several years. They retain the option of receiving first-Monday editions electronically.

The interactive magazine will contain everything except the specialist sections, including the front-section Newsletter, General Interest section, all the columns, and Statistics.

Basically, this reconfiguration packages four weeks' worth of long, complex articles appearing heretofore in the specialist sections within a monthly printed magazine that also contains the weekly features that are delivered electronically on other weeks. That description of the change bears heavily on the reasons to make it.

OGJ has long blended information of timely value (Newsletter, General Interest, columns, Statistics) with information of specialized, often more-timeless value published as longer, more-complex articles that require more time to read.

For specialist articles, many including multiple figures, charts, maps, and formulas, the comfortable medium is print. For timely material, especially news, the priority increasingly is speed of delivery coupled with flexibility of presentation. News, usually lacking complex graphics, is as readable online as it is in print, maybe more so. With news, the main consideration is flexibility of the delivery system. That evolving priority increasingly means electrons rather than dead trees.

And dead trees are increasingly expensive. Removing three print magazines a month from the publishing schedule enables OGJ to maintain weekly frequency and to continue providing as much material as before—more, actually, because of the restoration of fifth-Monday publication.

The change enables OGJ to keep timely material timely and retain an attractive print showcase for more-complex, timeless articles. It enables OGJ to capitalize on the flexibility of electronic delivery, such as by embedding video features in the electronic magazine. And it accommodates OGJ material to increasingly popular electronic reading devices.

Tripartite mission

From the perspective of an OGJ veteran, this is the most exciting change since the start of online reporting a decade ago, when OGJ eagerly embraced the worldwide web as way to augment the industry-focused news element of its tripartite mission. Now, news products include not only the print magazine and web site but also daily, weekly, and monthly electronic newsletters and feeds to and from the PennEnergy portal for energy information, www.pennenergy.com.

Those other dimensions of OGJ's mission have capitalized on the web's ability to extend value, too. OGJ's legacy of technical articles has gained archival value through the convenience of the keyword-search function available to subscribers. Around that treasury of oil industry intelligence has grown the flexible site-license product available through PennEnergy.

Similarly, OGJ's statistics found new forms of life in databases, historical series, and a full menu of other products available through PennEnergy's OGJ Online Research Center.

OGJ's reconfiguration thus represents an important phase in a multimedia evolution already well under way.

What doesn't change, and what hasn't changed since the company now called PennWell Corp. began life 100 years by buying, renaming, and setting high standards for OGJ, is uncompromising commitment to service to our readers and to the authority of what we publish—in these pages and beyond.

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