Facebook’s Grow magazine – for the business leader who wants to be cool as well as rich

The semi-evil social network has launched its latest venture, a lifestyle magazine for the elite. Just don’t call it a publisher ...
  
  

Grow by Facebook … not a magazine for men with beards.
Grow by Facebook … not a magazine for men with beards. Photograph: Grow

Name: Grow.

Age: One issue.

Appearance: Here, take a look.

Ooh, classy. I’ve not seen that before. Is this a new magazine for beard cultivators? No. That’s Oscar Olsson on the cover. He’s creative director of H&M’s new fashion brand.

Ah. I saw the word “grow” and a picture of a massive beard, so I just thought … Forget the beard. As the strapline clearly states, this is “a magazine for business leaders”.

You mean captains of industry, senior executives, bosses, those types of people? That’s right. Although they like to feel cool as well as rich, so you have to call them “business leaders” these days.

Hey, I’ll call them whatever they pay me to call them. That’s the spirit. Anyway, Grow is for them, and has just been launched by Facebook.

The massive semi-evil website? That’s right. You can read it online if you know where to find it. And paper copies are available for free in the first-class lounges at Heathrow.

That would explain why I haven’t seen them. What’s inside the first issue? Besides that man with the beard. Well, according to Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s VP of EMEA …

EMEA? Is that the plural of emu? No. It stands for “Europe, the Middle East and Africa”.

Yes, that makes more sense. Emus are hardly the most … According to Mendelsohn, the first issue of Grow “explores the rise of niche brands”.

Jolly good. Plus there’s a report on “Paris’s burgeoning tech scene”.

Mmm. And “interviews with some of the people disrupting legacy brands from within”… Hello?

Sorry, I nodded off for a second there. What’s erupting? Disrupting. Business leaders love a bit of disruption.

Well, in that case they should definitely hire some emus. Not that kind of disruption, I’m afraid. This is more of a buzzy, techy, businessy sort of thing.

Of course. Well, this sounds like everything I’d expect to find in a free business magazine, if I were desperate enough to read one. Yes, although remember it’s not really a magazine.

Sorry? It’s not a magazine.

But it calls itself “a magazine” on the cover and it’s … you know, a magazine. Don’t let that confuse you. Grow is a “business marketing programme”. As Facebook’s Leah Woodington has said: “This is purely intended for marketing communications purposes.”

Right. Facebook aren’t publishers, remember, or else they’d be responsible for the things that are published on their website.

Do say: “Facebook launches print edition.”

Don’t say: “I knew this whole internet business would blow over.”

 

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