Getting and spending

FOR THE FIRST TIME since it became an alumni publication in 1990, this magazine will skip a beat this summer while its staff gets two new projects underway.
The first is a sophisticated web presence. A revamping of the old umass.edu/umassmag site is being created for us by designer Tekla McInerney '90. With the aid of webmaster Keith Paul '98C, we should be high-wiring it on the Internet in August.
     The second is an advertising program. Both because we want to and because we've been asked to begin making as well as spending money, UMass Magazine is starting to sell—not its soul!—but a limited number of its column inches to advertisers. As we announce on the inside back cover of this issue, the first paid ads will appear in our fall issue, which you'll see in October of this year.
     We plan to start small and go carefully with this. Our objective is an ad program that will both offset the costs of sending the magazine to all alumni, and that will increase its value to you. We think we can do that by concentrating on on-campus and local ads and on advertising by and for alumni.
     This is a big step as well as a big project. Now more than ever, we want to know what you think. Because as ever (she wrote, echoing a beer ad) this mag's for you.

– Patricia Wright