There comes a time when you launch a magazine, but you don’t call it a magazine. Forbes, publisher of its namesake business magazine and luxury business title ForbesLife — and fresh off layoffs that are bruising most of the U.S. print media business – is starting ForbesWoman.

Rather than a magazine, the publisher is calling it a “brand,” which moves with the prevailing wisdom these days that you want to attract readers wherever they are, so you put the “brand” wherever it is. In that case, this means a quarterly magazine, bagged with copies of Forbes for female subscribers. It also means a website, which even a guy like me can read. In addition, it promises research, conferences and other events for its audience: women in the business world.

ForbesWoman’s press materials talk about its official launch, though it’s worth nothing that this is a retooling of something that you have seen before: ForbesLife Executive Woman, the somewhat awkardly named title that it started in 2007. Moira Forbes, daughter of Forbes Chief Steve Forbes, will publish the new magazine and Carol Hymowitz will edit it.

Here’s a sample of what to expect. From the press release:

ForbesWoman on Forbes.com will serve as the premier destination for professional women, with breaking news, prominent voices, regular features, in-depth reports and columns, peer-driven social networking and numerous opportunities for dialogue and interactivity. ForbesWoman content areas include: Leadership, Power Women, Entrepreneurs, Net Worth, Style, Wellbeing and Time. It will also offer a video series, “Smart Women Now,” and featured columnists who include Moira Forbes and economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett.

ForbesWoman online launches with a special report entitled “The New Executive Woman,” sponsored by Audi, which profiles the modern day female executive. This report includes: “Rule Breakers,” a story about how more women are taking greater control of their careers; “Making Money in a Downturn,” profiling how women have stayed on top of their game in these challenging economic times; “The Year’s Savviest Celebrity Businesswomen,” a look at the most successful celebrity businesswomen; “Managing a Family,” about how women manage high-powered careers with children; “How She Leads,” a study that investigates if women have what it takes to be leaders; and “How She Gets Ahead,” which provides networking and management strategies.

(Photo: Courtesy of Forbes)

There is no better way to learn about the art of product placement than to learn from the masters. Today, that means Microsoft Corp and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, both of which were the subject of articles about how they’re delivering their messages like little pills wrapped in the sugar coating of the entertainment you consume.

Ad Age:

Can Microsoft market its way out of the search basement? Probably not, but it’s going to try, entrusting [ad] agency JWT to craft a campaign for its new search engine, alternately dubbed Kumo or Project Kiev or Live Search, depending on who’s talking about it. … The service is being tested and is expected to make its debut in the summer. … Industry executives expect JWT, part of WPP, to unveil an estimated $80 million to $100 million push for the new search engine in June, with online, TV, print and radio executions. Microsoft spent $361 million on U.S. measured media in 2008, the bulk of it devoted to brand advertising and smaller chunks to other Microsoft brands such as Xbox and MSN, according to TNS Media Intelligence data.

The New York Times:

The huge [Gates] foundation, brimming with billions of dollars from Mr. Gates and Warren Buffett, is well known for its myriad projects around the world to promote health and education. It is less well known as a behind-the-scenes influencer of public attitudes toward these issues by helping to shape story lines and insert messages into popular entertainment like the television shows “ER,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “Private Practice.” The foundation’s messages on H.I.V. prevention, surgical safety and the spread of infectious diseases have found their way into these shows.

Now the Gates Foundation is set to expand its involvement and spend more money on influencing popular culture through a deal with Viacom, the parent company of MTV and its sister networks VH1, Nickelodeon and BET. It could be called “message placement”: the social or philanthropic corollary to product placement deals in which marketers pay to feature products in shows and movies. Instead of selling Coca-Cola or G.M. cars, they promote education and healthy living.

The Times story uses expert comments from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been doing this issue placement for years, and gave advice to the Gates Foundation about how to do this. One of the Kaiser officials told the Times that this “is not about planting a message.”

That’s exactly what Viacom must have been thinking when it was depositing Gates’s check.

Keep an eye on:

• Job cuts at Conde Nast and Forbes made an inordinate amount of news on Wednesday, even though they’ve already been gut-gut-gutting away. (MediaMemo at AllThingsD)
• Old media cable TV executives discuss strategies for making money when there’s less of it running around. (PaidContent)
• The Newspaper Association of America doesn’t generally crave publicity about the sad state of the business these days, but there’s an exception to every rule. Maybe that’s why the NAA got CEO John Sturm onto the Colbert report of all places. Our favorite part: Colbert suggested newspapers consider product-placement in stories, took a shot at the New York Times and asked Sturm: “If you’re serious about wanting to compete on the Internet, why don’t newspapers have a huge porn section?” (Chicago Tribune)

(Photo: Reuters)

Allen Stanford's financial empire is in chaos after the SEC charged that he and his partners were perpetrating a "massive" fraud, but only four months ago things appeared much sunnier, at least in a glowing Forbes profile that described his investment strategy as "sure and steady."

The profile, "Crazy for Cricket," was part of the Forbes 400 ranking of the richest Americans (Stanford was #205). It outlines his goal of competing within five years with the likes of UBS and Wachovia -- although to be fair, the former company has had its own problems and Stanford managed to outlast the latter.

An exodus of wealth advisers is already under way, says Stanford, as writedowns and layoffs mount at those firms. In a single week in August, he says, his new Richmond, Va. office hired ex-UBS employees with clients representing $1 billion in assets. "There are a lot of deals to be made in financial services--banks, brokerages, trusts," he says. Another industry he's eyeing is desalination plants in developing countries like China: "We're very bullish on making a lot of money on water in the next 20 years."

The article also has some colorful details on Stanford Financial employee requirements -- all were required to "wear a golden Stanford eagle pin at all times" -- and Stanford's religious beliefs:

Then there's the rumor that Stanford carries around a vial of blood drawn from a Catholic priest with stigmata--Christ-like wounds. Not quite true. But one night in 1993 a friend called him up and asked if he could borrow a plane to fly an injured priest to New York for medical treatment. According to Stanford, the priest had scars on his hands and feet and oil gushing from his wounds. He remembers touching his head to the priest's and experiencing a "life-changing" surge that strengthened his faith in God. The priest survived, but Stanford has lost touch with him.

Read more of Reuters coverage of Stanford here.

There’s the story, and there’s always the side-story. The snarky, juicy, lip-smacking stuff. 

Case in point is last night’s news that Jerry Yang is stepping down as chief executive of Yahoo — which itself is an interesting tale. But we’d like to draw your attention to RealDanLyons.com, where you’ll find a wonderfully catty distraction.  

In his blog, Dan Lyons rips into Kara Swisher, the AllThingsD honcho and prominent tech writer, who apparently took issue with him for not crediting her with getting the scoop on Yang’s departure. 

“Kara, honey, I love you dearly, but girl-child, having a company send you a press release ten minutes before they put it on the wire isn’t a scoop. That’s called taking dictation,” he writes. ”One thing you have to admire about Kara is that in a blogosphere that all too often resembles an echo chamber, she’s managed to cut out the middleman; she just echoes herself. And while others engage in logrolling, Kara keeps it real and rolls her own log. Kara, listen. You’re not the story. Bokay? You’re the reporter. This isn’t about you. It really isn’t. Now stop it or I will fly out there and sit you down for a talk. You’re getting Mossberg Syndrome, honey, and that’s not a good thing.”

Is Swisher going to take that? No way, no chance.

“How would a snarktastic wonder like you know what a reporter was?” she responds in the comment section. ”I was teasing you, you twit, as you well know (I would dearly love to mangle emails you sent to me recently about your work, but I am too much of a gentleman!). When you come here, we’ll have a “talk” all right–my people like to call it a “sit-down” though. Love and kisses, Kara.”

What a way to start the morning.

Keep an eye on:

• AT&T Inc, the No. 1 U.S. mobile service, said it would sell LG Electronics Inc’s first smartphone aimed at the U.S. market in time for the holiday shopping season (Reuters)
• Forbes and TV Guide separately unveiled sweeping cutbacks yesterday, while The New York Times Co. shut down its critically acclaimed sports magazine Play (NY Post)
• PepsiCo has moved the high-profile advertising duties for Pepsi and Diet Pepsi to TBWA\Chiat\Day, an agency owned by Omnicom Group, as it looks to reinvigorate sales of its best-known soft drinks (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

I was reading a Forbes article about the distressing state of some of the worse-off U.S. newspaper publishers and how their debt threatens to send them into default, or worse yet, maybe out of business. That’s when I came across this distressing nugget:

The problem may be particularly acute for players who have concentrated on acquisitions in the last few years. For instance, Journal Register Co. (nyse: JRC - news - people ), whose stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange this year, bought nothing but trouble when it paid $415 million in 2004 for 21st Century Newspapers, a chain of Michigan papers that have been battered by a troubled U.S. automotive industry.

The company now has $642 million in debt and a market cap of a just $275,000 (not a misprint). It’s rated junk by Moody’s. Journal Register did not return a call for comment.

I recalculated Journal Register’s market cap this afternoon, when it closed up 16.67% to 7 cents a share. (Reader Dan points out my goof. Journal Register closed up to 0.7 cents a share. Which proves my point, of course — My house is worth more than Journal Register. — RM) By the figures we have available to us, that puts its value at about $2.8 million. Then I ran the calculation again, this time based on Journal Register’s 12-month low price of $0.004 cents a share. I came up with $157,440. That’s when it hit me: On that day, Sept. 26, 2008, Journal Register was worth about half as much as Zillow says my 980 square-foot two-bedroom 1.5-bathroom house in Jersey City, NJ, is worth.

The big difference? Journal Register has payroll. I have only a cat.