Forbes putting Web content into magazine

Forbes chief product officer Lewis Dvorkin writes about how the business magazine is using content that started on its Web site in its magazine.

Dvorkin writes, “We’ve been at that for months, and our efforts are evolving here, too. In fact, content on 24 pages in the last two issues of Forbes began in some fashion on Forbes.com.

We started it all with ‘The Conversation.’ Instead of Letters to the Editor, a convention that seems no longer appropriate, we began contextually integrating user comments about our stories — from Forbes.com, Twitter, Facebook and regular mail, too — throughout our magazine’s different sections. That, in turn, led us to a special digital project called Names You Need to Know, which enabled us to crowdsource portions of our Dec. 20, 2010 magazine cover. Fifteen pages of that issue of the magazine were dedicated to a conversation between our staffers, our contributors and audience members on the most important — and perhaps least known — people you should really know about in 2011.

“The notion of a dialogue in print has taken yet another direction. In the issue dated Feb. 28, an online conversation between Michael Noer, one of editors, and Jon Bruner one of our reporters, was turned into a fun and informational five page magazine feature on Jon’s use of all sorts of technology gadgets on a weekend trip to Romania. Online commenters also became part of the print ‘story.’

“In the current issue, a conversation turned serious. Forbes health reporters Bob Langreth, David Whelan and Matt Herper asked a question on their Forbes.com pages: Will health care costs bankrupt America? Other Forbes staffers and contributors, including Avik Roy, entered the debate, as did audience members. That informative and engaging digital exchange — full of information and perspective —  was transformed into a magazine discussion (we continue to explore new presentation formats). It comes right after the Clayton Christensen cover package.”

Read more here.