Massive and unfettered consumption of digital media is so prevalent it’s spawned its own memes. Binge watching is a thing; it has its own Twitter hashtag. And music fans have become their own station producers with unlimited access to just about any music in the world.
So it’s not a far leap to think that magazines would be a great “next step” in the subscription content model. The problem is, nobody really seems to want it, at least given the current state of digital magazines.
“The idea of banding together into a Netflix of magazines isn’t untested, just unpopular,” states Joshua Brustein in Bloomberg Business Week. Next Issue Media tried it in 2011, and their CEO Morgan Guenther admits to Brustein that “No one has heard of us.”
In an age of rapid and rabid social proof, that doesn’t bode well for Magzter, the newest entrant into the field. According to Paresh Dave in The LA Times, “the all-you-can-consume model of content distribution on the Internet made popular by Netflix and Spotify is set to infiltrate the magazine industry.”
For 10 bucks a month, Dave notes, “readers can now access unlimited digital copies of ESPN the Magazine, Maxim, New York and 2,000 more magazine titles worldwide through a new online service called Magzter Gold.”
The problem is, consumers just aren’t digging digital magazines, something that Magzter’s co-found Vijay Radhakrishnan admits to Dave.
“Digital magazines are growing, but not the way publishers expected,” acknowledged Radhakrishnan. “It’s growing slowly and the engagement level of magazines is not that great.”
That’s not to say that readers don’t enjoy individual articles online; these standalone pieces are easy to digest and share socially, and – maybe most importantly – free. And that, explains Dave, could be a large part of the problem with a pay-to-read digital magazine model.
“Readers have grown used to receiving news, stories and photos for free. As they experiment with ideas like Magzter, some magazines are likely to cut back on what they offer free online,” he notes.
The real issue as we see it is summed up perfectly by Dave when he says “Magzter and its competitors are still struggling with making the experience of reading a magazine online consumer friendly.”
“For instance, how do they replicate the ability of friends to pass around copies of a magazine? Or with individual articles more important to many consumers than an entire issue, how do they create a service in which readers can browse articles by topic, for example, rather than by magazine title? Where does sharing content on social media fit in?” Dave asks.
While the technology exists to make it happen, the desire just doesn’t seem to be there.
“As of today, there is no evidence that magazine readers are clamoring for Netflix like experience, but there is virtually no barrier to entrance for the digital newsstands as magazine publishers continue to jump at nearly any solution that might net incremental subscription dollars and sustain their rate base levels,” notes D.B. Hebbard in Talking New Media.
“The other criticism, this time from the reader side, is that most of the digital newsstands offering these services are offering up PDF replicas to reader that are often hard to read, and rarely as convenient as print, or as interesting as native digital editions,” Hebbard continues, something we’ve noted before makes a digital magazine a less-than-ideal experience.
Consumers will tell on this one. A movie is a movie, regardless of the size of the screen. It is whole and complete unto itself. Same with a song (although we do feel the loss of the carefully crafted “album” experience). A magazine exists as a whole entity, and digital has so far failed to do a good job of replicating the experience.
Until it does, we aren’t likely to see this idea take off.
January 21, 2015, 11:36 am
David,
I have been a charter subscriber to Next Issue Media (NIM) and Readr (from Pixel Mags) since each was launched. At 10 bucks a piece I have access to 120+ magazines from NIM and well over 2,000 titles from around the world with Readr. As an automotive magazine content producer (I write and photograph autos for a living) I find Readr especially valuable as it gives me access to magazines that would be hard to acquire otherwise.
But the actual reading experience is horrible and I’m using a full-size iPad. I can only imagine how unsatisfying it is on a seven-inch device or a smartphone. All you have to do is place a copy of a “real” magazine on top of its NIM or Readr replica to see the problem. When the existing print title is ported to a digital replica the type is tiny and where there is the ability to view pages side-by-side, the two page spread view lacks the kind of impact in its print counterpart.
The reason, to paraphrase Gen. Patton, is apparent to a blind man. Even an iPad presents a viewing area that is significantly smaller than even physically small magazines. When the magazine approaches an 8×11 size, the print is unreadable when ported to an iPad edition, requiring too much zooming and scrolling; you’re never looking at a fully integrated (if that’s the correct term) viewing experience that one gets when one is holding a well-produced magazine in your hands. It’s really pretty simple. I just don’t understand that I seem to be the only person who realizes it.
One of my favorite magazine, Octane, from the UK, offered a digitally optimized edition for the iPad that was spectacular in its presentation but as it required its own unique (and I assume costly) layout and was discontinued.
Eight years ago I launched a digital magazine, Automotive Traveler, which was designed from scratch, to provide a magazine-like reading experience for the mobile device of its time (2007), a mainstream 15-inch laptop. You can take a look at it, especially the first four issues from 2007 at
http://www.automotivetraveler.com/magazine/magazine.php
Using the scroll bar on the left-hand side of the page to scroll down to the first four issues, especially the second issue that can be accessed that can be accessed at this link directly
http://www.automotivetraveler.com/magazine/viewer.php?path=vol_1/iss_2
While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination—remember this was 2007—I believe down deep in my heart that we accomplished my primary goal, compelling automotive-focused travel features that were easy to read on a computer.
(The first four issues were presented on the web using Olive Software’s package which was fully interactive. After we stopped production of the fourth issue we used a blog to present our contact, restarting the magazine in 2010 and producing an additional seven issues on a smaller scale—I learned how to do simple layouts myself eliminating the expense of outside designers and as you have noted, this lack of design flair is apparent —in 2010, 2011 and 2012 using our own viewer that works in any browser. We ported the first four issues into our own viewer but the links are no longer active as they are in the issues that follow.)
To see how it all works, on any device, check out the final issue from 2012.
http://www.automotivetraveler.com/magazine/viewer.php?path=vol_3/iss_5
The only thing I think it needs, is full integration of video with the use of pop-up windows which would be easy to add.
There’s only one problem, revenue. We couldn’t find sufficient advertising support. And in 2012 virtually no one was paying for Internet-based content.
But all is not lost. Right now we’re producing a classic Mercury Cougar magazine, content targeted to a very small, under-served niche of owners of 1967 to 1973 models. We produce six issues a year, $24 for a digital-only subscription presented in our own browser-based viewer and $60 for a print-on-demand edition wit access to the digital edition at no charge. And it’s in the black… from its day one launch. And if we can grow our subscriber base to 1,000 print subscribers, we can move from POD to a traditional press, substantially reducing the cost of the print product. Because our readers are generally older, more buy the print edition than digital but we expect digital to narrow the gap as we grow. Our current subscribers want to hold a “real” magazine in their hands. They find the digital edition unsatisfying. You can preview the digital edition here.
http://legendarycougar.com/
I think that Legendary Cougar Magazine plays into the trend of digital properties like Politico producing traditional print magazines. These so-called “premium” magazines aimed at small, well-defined and in some instances under-served niches is a growing trend, and will continue to grow. Using Legendary Cougar Magazine example, using POS technology, it’s even possible to re-launch Automotive Traveler as a digital/print hybrid to reach a sufficient number of subscribers without the immediate need for advertising. But I would be happy if it did attract advertisers, maybe companies that offer classic car tours around the world.
Sorry for the long post. I’m really passionate about this topic. I have 10 years of my life invested in this concept. With the small success of Legendary Cougar Magazine, I believe that the concept can be scaled up to launch small-niche-focused magazines that can utilize POD to launch, that can with manageable expectations, that can be grown into very targeted publications aimed at a well-defined readership. You know what I’m working on.
Richard Truesdell
Co-founder and Editorial Director
Automotive Traveler and Legendary Cougar Magazine