Abstract

This project report examines a relatively new form of publication known as a "webzine" - in effect, a magazine being published on the Internet - from both a publishing perspective and a business perspective. The report is based upon an eight-month part-time internship with Hip Communications Inc., a small commercial Internet publishing firm in Vancouver, Canada. The report is divided into two parts. Part 1 attempts to situate the category of "webzine" publications within the publishing industry as a whole. Similarities and differences between print and online media are discussed, and an appropriate business model for webzines is identified. Part 2 is a case study of the Hip Webzine, published by Hip Communications Inc. In that section I situate the Hip Webzine within the overall corporate picture of Hip Communications and examine the structure and evolution of the Hip Webzine during the brief period of its existence. At the conclusion of Part 2, I describe some research that was performed using the Hip Webzine as a case study. With a suite of custom-written computer programs, I was able to investigate some aspects of the readership patterns of the Hip Webzine, and here I present an interpretation of the results.

(Note that "live" WWW links from within this online version of the Project Report to pages on other servers were as described at the time of writing (Fall of 1995). The material these links point to now may be different: such is the way of the World Wide Web...)