If you’re coming to Oshkosh, get ready forAirplanista Magazine’s new #Tweeplechase game

Airplanista Magazine, a popular new media, online publication, is launching a fun game for three days during EAA Airventure Oshkosh. Called #Tweeplechase, this new event will lead players on a clue-by-clue hunt to win prizes as they follow the #tweeplechase hashtag on Twitter. The game is scheduled to be played Thursday, July 28th, Friday, July 29th and Saturday, July 30th.

“If you’ve ever enjoyed the sport/game of geocaching, you’re going to LOVE #Tweeplechase,” said Airplanista Editor/Publisher Dan Pimentel. “During each day that we play the game, I’ll tweet clues to start you in the direction of the prize. And these will be good prizes too, some valued as high as $75, including AvPads from P.i.C Supplies, copies of Dan Linehan’s new book on Burt Rutan, and a $75 gift certificate from @GirlsWithWings! I’ll continue to tweet clues taking you closer to that prize, and the first reader to put the clues together and find the prize envelope wins that Tweeplechase’s prize. And there will be multiple prizes on some days!”

A good knowledge of airplanes and the EAA show grounds will come in very handy when you play #Tweeplechase. Some clues might be cryptic and require deep thought to decipher, while others will be spot-on requiring you to be ready to find the prize instantly. “We anticipate that many tweeps will re-tweet the clues to their followers so more people in the aviation family can join in the fun as they try to figure out what the clues mean and where they need to go.” Pimentel said. “I think everyone will love this game, it’ll be great fun to play along as you travel around the show grounds. It is also a way to bring awareness to my magazine’s generous sponsors and partners who are making these prizes possible.”

Airplanista Magazine is free to read and download, and is published on the first of each month, online here. Each new online issue is offered using a state-of-the-art digital publishing platform that includes Mobile 3.0, allowing iPad, iPhone, Android and Blackberry users to read the magazine without downloading an app.

With a tagline of “Sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, always unpredictable.”, the magazine presents aviation stories, aviation commentary, and stunning aviation photography each month to a target audience that is a combination of general aviation pilots, aircraft owners, professional pilots and those in aviation business and industry. Contact Airplanista Magazine Editor/Publisher Dan Pimentel via email at editor@airplanista.com or through the magazine website.

Intern needed ASAP for Oshkosh 2011

Airplanista Magazine editor Dan Pimentel has an IMMEDIATE NEED to locate a media - communications - journalism intern to help me Thursday, Friday and/or Saturday at EAA AirVenture. Not a paid position, but I can get the right person credentialed and I will pass along much of what I have learned working in this business over parts of the last five decades. If you want to learn about the digital magazine business, this is your opportunity.

Primary focus is shooting/editing video, maybe interviewing subjects, shooting stills, helping me with my growing promotional events (Tweeplechase and Oshbash Tweet-up). Must have your own laptop with video editing capability, your own video camera (can be a DSLR), tripods, microphone, etc. You'll shadow me as I walk the grounds setting out the Tweeplechase prizes, and we'll think on our feet shooting quick video clips for editing into 2-3 minute clips for future issues.

Must be tech savvy, responsible, and love airplanes. Email me at editor@airplanista.com if interested. I cannot cover your expenses, housing, food and ground transportation is your responsibility. But if you end up as my sidekick, I promise to flood your brain with yummy knowledge of media, journalism, advertising, photography, publishing, all of that.

Going backward is really moving forward

Yes, Airplanista Magazine has again made yet another big change. We have scrubbed our subscription model and have reverted back to the free model for all, no login or paid subscription needed.

For those readers who were gracious enough to support the magazine with a paid subscription, emails have gone out describing options for refunds if desired.

Because everyone wants to know what happened, here’s the quick version:

Airplanista Magazine started out as an experiment to see if the material usually found on my old Blog, World of Flying, would be viewed by more people in a slicker, magazine flipbook format. The first issue, October, 2010, we expected 1,000 readers and because of lots of buzz in the aviation media, we received 11,000! I knew I had found a niche.

In the months that have followed, the magazine grew in size, and people really started talking about it online. By April of this year, we were averaging about 6,000 readers a month. But the time and effort to produce the magazine was taking a toll on staff here at Celeste/Daniels, my ad agency and creative studio. In order to stay at this heightened level of work and also justify my personal time commitment, we chose to develop a subscription system to try and monetize the project.

We soft launched the subscription system with the April issue, and immediately, readership fell off a cliff. Subscriptions were not coming in as expected. We continued this soft launch in the May issue, and again lost a significant portion of our readership. And this month, when we went to a full paid subscription system, we lost more readers and were seeing almost no subscriptions. It became obvious that this subscription system was quickly killing off the magazine.

A decision had to be made. I had three options...(1) Keep the subscription system and watch readership drop from thousands a month to hundreds, (2) Go back to the free model or (3) Stop producing Airplanista Magazine entirely. Of those three options, we chose #2.

In contemplating this decision, I realized that in trying to monetize the project, we were losing sight of our primary mission, which I have explained at length here in the revised June issue. It came down to this:

Airplanista Magazine exists to try and celebrate, honor and assist proponents of GA, and offer the positive side of aviation. I was being drawn to stories of these people, and trying to charge for the book was a big, big mistake. I want to continue telling these stories, and producing the magazine is far more important to me than using it to generate revenue.

So we have gone back to an free format, but are staying with the rather expensive but also rather remarkable Mobile 3.0 platform we were using with the paid version. I am prepared to eat the costs of publishing via this platform in the name of helping GA grow. There is no cost or obligation now to read it at Airplanista.com, and we have placed a “Contribute” button plainly on our home page to allow anyone who wants to support the mission of the magazine by kicking in a few dollars to keep it going forward.

Now I need to ask a favor. If you read this far, you must be a true "Airplanista." Please go online somewhere and post the URL of http://airplanista.com and tell people it’s OK now to come back, Airplanista Magazine is again free and still as cool as ever. We love our magazine, and know lots of you do too. Please help us grow it once again so we can do more good.