Magazine conference time!

I'll be spending most of next week listening to seminars and mingling with magazine folk at Mags U and MagNet. And of course, I'll be sharing the best of what I see and hear at the conferences on MastheadOnline.

The week will be bookended by the country's two biggest awards nights: On Monday, there's the KRW Awards, where Masthead publisher and founding editor Doug Bennet will receive the Harvey Southam Editorial Career Award. And on Friday, it's the National Magazine Awards, hosted by the great Paul Jones. There's a whole bunch of awards (CSME, CMC, Volunteers of the Year) that will be handed out in between as well.

I'm stoked.

As I hope you know, MastheadOnline recently launched the Canadian Online Publishing Awards, the first-ever awards program recognizing excellence in online editorial and innovation by Canadian magazine and website publishers.

Covering what magazines are doing online is a big part of Masthead's editorial mandate (we even have a blog about it) and we'd like to expand our coverage even further by including more news and features about online-only publications.

One thing we're trying to do is create a list of online magazines being published in Canada. Our definition of "online magazine" is very broad: If a Web (or e-mail)-based publication is based in Canada, carries some original editorial content and defines itself as an online magazine, it qualifies.

The list is admittedely pretty thin right now, but here are the titles we know of from Google, Wikipedia and general browsing:

The Tyee
Rabble.ca
Unlimited
Chart
Suite101
SweetSpot.ca
Dose
TV Guide
Straight Goods
The Western Standard
Enter Stage Right
Irked Magazine
Mondo Magazine
Le Québecois Libre
Seven Oaks Magazine
Masthead
AskMen.com Canada
Back of the Book
Canadian Driver
FrugalBride.com
The Global Gazette
EnviroZine
Orato.com
InnovationCanada.ca
Cannabis Culture
Eastern Woods & Waters
Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles
XXYZ
Possibilities

To expand this list we'd love your help. If you publish, work for, or know of a Canadian online magazine, post the title and URL in the comments section of this post.

The final report from the Canada Post Corporation Strategic Review panel has been released. Here's what they recommend regarding the CPC's controversial decision to implement distance-related pricing for publications mail:

The Panel...recommends that distance-based pricing for publications mail be reviewed to ensure that rural Canada is not unduly affected by the consequences of this type of pricing structure for publications mail.

Wow. We sure know how to get things done in this country, eh?