Just seven months after launching its weekly iPad magazine tech, its founding company Future has killed the digital mag.
According to sources at Future, “tech was a great product but wasn’t delivering in the way we anticipated it to, so we took the quick but difficult decision to close it at the end of last month.”
The magazine was aimed at “busy technology enthusiasts” and had a modest selling price of L0.69.
The demise of tech, which was specifically created for an audience of tech enthusiasts and early adopters, leaves us wondering if a digital magazine can thrive, or even survive, without a legacy print magazine behind it.
We aren’t alone in wondering that, as tech publisher Nick Merrit explained back in December, a month after the launch:
“Legacy print titles have readers who know the mag, what role it plays and really the challenge there is transitioning them from one format to another. The (print) mag is its own best advertisement for the digital edition. Our challenge was getting people to buy something that they’d never heard of and had no real conception of.”
It was a challenge they couldn’t surmount, even with a reported seven figure marketing budget.
The takeaway for magazine publishers, whether digital or print, is clear. The printed magazine is the basis from which engagement and readership springs. Offering that information in a digital form can certainly enhance the user experience, but it cannot replace the magazine in its entirety. Sobering thoughts for the digital publishing world, and a solid reminder that legacy brand publications have real power.
Read the full article here: http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/tech-is-closed-but-why-didn-t-future-s-web-to-digital-edition-take-off
[…] the recent demise of iPad mag tech, a revisit to the prophetic words of Sparksheet’s design director Charles Lim seems apropos. Back […]