Demise of Domino; what's wrong with this picture?

If you want to contemplate the stark difference between the advertising-driven model of magazine publishing and the audience-driven model, between traditional publishing and publishing that was web-ready and plugged into the zeitgeist, you will want to read the article in the New York Times about the closing of Domino magazine.

In under four years, Domino had succeeded in attracting the young, energetic readers that all media profess to desire beyond all else. Indeed, their sheer numbers seem to pose a question: why would a giant media company like Condé Nast cut off access not only to its present — energetic young women eager to shop at Target for mirrored tiles to glue around a fireplace, as Sandee Royalty did recently in her suburban Houston home, following something she saw in Domino — but also to its future?

Here was vivid proof of a dedicated fan base for a magazine that seemed perfectly poised to transition to the Web, that in fact already had an appealing Web presence, rather than the awkward foothold sites of most Condé Nast titles.

It was a magazine that met its circulation promises, but fell short on its ad budget. And its readers, no matter how attractive and involved they were, didn't really figure into the decision to close it.

I particularly liked the part where one of the readers talked about an activity called "magazining", in which she and her friends sat together and paged through.

“Like shopping, but we don’t spend any money,” she said. As much as she uses and likes them, the design blogs aren’t a satisfying substitute. “I need something I can archive, something I can ‘magazine’ with my friends."

There are editors and publishers out here who would kill to have such reader engagement.