Ad Age critic takes swip at NYT's stock charts, new Conde Nast glossy

Advertising Age’s Simon Dumenco takes a shot at both the New York Times’ business section and the new Conde Nast Portfolio, a business magazine slated to appear next year, in his latest column.

Dumenco writes, “Would it kill you, New York Times, to admit that your much-hyped ‘Market Gauges’ pages — the successor to the stock tables –are a failed experiment? Nice try, but a static collection of charts and graphs and stats rendered in gray-scale is useless. Just send everyone to your interactive, real-time, colorful, online market-data array at nytimes.com, and be done with it. You’re wasting your time, our time and newsprint.

“Would it kill you, Conde Nast, to cut the self-congratulatory blather surrounding your distant-future business magazine? Glad you finally settled on a name — Portfolio. Yippee. But with the hype dial already cranked up to 11, you’re straying dangerously close to Talk magazine overkill territory. And since when is underscoring how excruciatingly slooooowwwww you are a good idea? April 24, 2007? Hollywood blockbusters with casts of thousands get made quicker than Portfolio. Chill out on the drum-beating and focus your energy on making a brilliant magazine, please.”

Ouch. Read more here.