Digital Magazines: Shift in Technology, Shift in Psychology

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Permalink Reply by John Matyskiel on June 19, 2008 at 4:27pm

I really don't see the value proposition for consumer pubs. It's a mis-use of digital technology. Did you see this post? I haven't seen any related articles.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/...

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Permalink Reply by David Pilcher on June 20, 2008 at 10:11am

That's an interesting article about how Texterity has created a BETA site (www.coverleaf.com) for sharing their publications on the internet with consumers. I've heard many digital magazine companies are interested in a central site (like a YouTube for magazines) where people can come and find magazines on topics they are interested in. Zinio has a similar site to Texterity's new coverleaf site that has been successful for a couple years now. Doesn't take people to a publisher’s website but does help promote the magazine in its digital form. I imagine it's going to take a company like Google to capture the variety of digital formats and organize it in a logical and searchable fashion.

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Permalink Reply by Cimarron Buser on June 22, 2008 at 5:44pm

Coverleaf (www.coverleaf.com) by Texterity is a new concept beyond the agent model of magazines.com or zinio. The idea is to first provide readers with a site that they can browse and enjoy magazines. A user can read individual pages of every magazine in Coverleaf, and then clip and save interesting pages. This moves the site beyond the "transactional" element of sites that are simply selling magazines, to a site which models the physical "newsstand" where someone can take their time to browse and sample magazines.

Now, for the publisher, it gets interesting. The consumer publishers have a great file of "print subscribers", but a relatively low percentage of email addresses (and many that they do have are not deliverable). By providing a "companion digital", the publisher gets a fully integrated subscriber record with a deliverable email address, which can be used to promote community, generate offers of interest, and help on renewals.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Hunter on June 23, 2008 at 2:43pm

Hi David

New member
Listened in on webinar link.
Some interesting comments.
What surprises me most about Publishers is how little they appreciate what the technology on offer can bring to there business model.
Nice to see your own company joining the revolution.

Ian

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