Last time I saw him, he was looking as pale and wan as bleached newsprint and suffering the stressful rigours of trying to rescue his two Maverick magazines by talking to a phalanx of recalcitrant print media owners. He didn't smile much then and, on the odd occasion that he did, his teeth took up 90% of the surface area of his face.
Big hit
His online publishing venture, the artfully and often cynically crafted Daily Maverick, has become a hit among his media peers, who quote the site and First Thing newsletter regularly.
When I met with him last week, he was on a typical Brkic high, waxing lyrical in perfect English with determined Slavic undertones, about how he was going to turn the media world on its head. "I'm going to publish a newspaper version of Daily Maverick" he said, daring me to state the obvious. Which I did.
"You cannot be serious," I knee-jerked back at him. "Haven't you learnt your lesson about putting things on pieces of paper?"
"Young think I am crazy, an idiot?" he retorted, with a smile that on this occasion only took up a quarter of his face.
"Yes," I said. "I do think sometimes you are crazy and occasionally an idiot for not walking away from your two print titles long before you did and having the savvy to go online long before you did. "
He ignored me completely and launched into a sales pitch about his 'newspaper' that would launch in August this year and involve giving all subscribers who coughed up R395 a month for a two-year subscription a brand new iPad 2.
Cracker idea
iMaverick (@imaverickza) is, of course, a brilliant idea. I had a look at the mock-up and it's more of a magazine than a newspaper and is just like any paper product, laid out attractively and with advertising where advertising should be.
At first, Brkic said that the idea was that subscribers would download it but with me being one of those people condemned to using very expensive 3G connections, I persuaded him to at least think about subscribers being able to read it online instead of having to cough up round about 70Mb of bandwidth every day downloading it.
I think he liked the idea because I didn't get that beady look he gives you when you try and tell him how to run his business.
iPad factor
It is a fascinating business model and time will tell whether it will be profitable or not. While he is doing the right thing by not giving away content free, it is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Clearly, the iPad incentive will have a lot of appeal to a wide section of consumers.
Taking the cost of the iPad 2 out of the R395-a-month subscription, the "cover price" of the "newspaper" will work out at just under R4 a copy - a lot cheaper than almost every daily newspaper with the exception of the Sunday Times daily, The Times, and some of the popular tabloids.
Certainly, in my opinion, given the content I saw on the mock-up, it will be well worth that sort of price.
Comparisions
But, then again, somehow the consumer is still not making a habit of comparing apples with apples when it comes to media purchases and, with so much information available online for free, it's going to be interesting to see how quickly this offer is taken up.
For about a year now, I have been reading Car magazine and Getaway on subscription from RamsayMedia via the iPad Zinio app and I must say, while it took a few months to acclimatise myself to reading magazines on my iPad, I really wouldn't switch back now.
It's hugely convenient
So, I applaud Brkic on his initiative and the only thing that will decide between success and failure of this new venture will be timing. Whether he has gone into this before the market is ready for it or whether his timing is spot on.
Ultimately, it will work and be a huge success if he manages to maintain the same level of quality content in it as he has done so far with the First Thing newsletter.
For more, go to www.imaverick.co.za and follow @imaverickza on Twitter.
See also:
For More links updated at 9.31am on 8 June 2011.
