COMPUTERACTIVE AND WEBUSER: AN EXPERT'S VIEW.(periodicals)(Review)(Brief Article)

IPC should have come up with a new sub-category of magazine in Webuser, Mark Holden says

So the ex-editor of VNU's Computeractive, Jim Lennox, is employed by IPC to set up a curiously similar looking magazine called Webuser.

Can this be classed as passing off? Well, VNU argued this case vociferously through a good old writ. It claimed that it was a flagrant attempt to position Webuser as a spin-off publication and therefore plugging into all of the brand trust that currently exists in their 327,962 circulating brand. IPC retorted with the pragmatic response that it is a completely different magazine -- Computeractive is all about monitors and silicon chips whereas Webuser is about web action.

In my self-appointed role as a mediator, I have to say that I side with VNU. The initial masthead and general style of the magazine was just too close. A similarity of such, say, within the baked beans market would have elicited a similar response -- even if the new entrant included sausages and egg. Anyway, IPC have made the necessary amendments so we're all friends again.

However, and as IPC stated, the products themselves are very different. In Webuser, IPC has produced a magazine aimed at the virgin webmarket and the current web-hungry die-hards. Flicking through the magazine `the first thing that I stumbled upon was the obligatory snapshot of the best new websites, a calendar of forthcoming web events, a satirical look at the political parties' online offerings, a review of bargain-shopper sites and a curious appraisal of fastfood sites with a ridiculously overcomprehensive rating ...