http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/ Engadget Comments for Magazine publishers said to be 'very close' to digital distribution deal http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 12:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 12:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 1:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
I am no genius, but the magazines won't have to incur printing costs, which will allow them to include more content, and have interactive content, which will balance out the costs of lack of a printer version. I mean if you subscribe to the magazine you are going to pay that price anyways, so why not pay for one that you can interact with, have product links going out to other sites/information etc.

I would gladly pay the same price for something that is 'better'. Don't you agree?]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
There are many journalists out there who need to be around (What if we had never found out about Watergate?), and without traditional news companies, I doubt they would be able to do what the world needs them to do. If this will allow these companies to profit a bit more, I am all for it.]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
I would pay to subscribe to many magazines if they were in digital form, on some sort of color thin tablet device.

The best part? I would lose the ever growing stack of magazines in my bathroom!

I like the magazine format. Reading the same content on a web page just isn't the same. But imagine reading a digital article on a tablet, then being able to search for something and see more information on the web. That's something you can't do with paper.]]>Nov 24th 2009 4:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 12:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
Yeah, especially since we've been reading magazines on Zinio forever (in computer time). Why are they wasting their energies on this? Shouldn't they be working to give us better articles and magazines instead of re-inventing the paperless magazine?]]>Nov 25th 2009 2:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 12:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/since when did a magazine make money with the sale of the magazine itself.

mainly, the cost of the magazine will cover for the cost of:
ink, paper, printing, shipping, distribution, an point of sale cut.

the magazine itself makes money with the commercials inside.
a little bit like the radio business.

so electronic distribution should reduce that price a lot:
no more paper, ink, printing, and no point of sale cut.
however, it cannot be zero, as there is still a distribution cost.

so, indeed, the magazines are trying to increase their margin.
so the question is: in a dying industry, with ads shifting from it, are we as customer willing to have this content for a price, and maybe ensure the continuity of it?

me: o need, industries are dying, and new ones created. so hell with it, I can find all that info online, and would love to have a subscription model, with a bouquet of magazines available.
]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/I get the subscription of the New Yorker and willingly paid for it.

We forget that not all content is or should be free and that good content requires investment and salaries. ]]>Nov 24th 2009 2:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
So you are saying the people who worked on the magazine shouldn't be compensated for their time? Great business model, what industry were you in again? ]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 1:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
Why should digital be cheaper? Instead of paper, you have bandwidth. It seems like a wash to me. I thought this was a tech blog and people understood that digital wasn't just some magical form that made everything free. There are still costs associated with digital distribution.

The Distribution fees are still relevant even in a digital domain, there are servers to maintain, bandwidth to allocate, storage space required for present, future, and past issues. I think, it's an equal trade. But I don't run a business, so I wouldn't know.
]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 1:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 1:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
Going digital makes a lot of sense. A digital magazine subscription makes more sense than a music subscription. Of course they would have to drop the price dramatically. I haven't purchased a magazine in years but I've browsed hundreds.]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/this suxx.

Carlos
p.s.: if anyone is into sports: http://epo.endorphinum.de]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 1:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
and 50 magazines is not even a drop in the ocean. there are thousands of different publications (magazines and newspapers) across the world

]]>Nov 24th 2009 1:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 1:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 2:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Hilarious! Obviously you either just got into computers recently, or have no idea about the history of either company (Apple & Microsoft)

I sure hope you are a Linux user with that statement.]]>Nov 24th 2009 4:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
1.) Make it a pain to use, i.e., add DRM and make sure it only works on one device, if at all.
2.) Make it as expensive or even more expensive than the printed version.
3.) Sue annoyed customers who prefer to crack the DRM or download the content via pirate webpages. Claim the damage is around $700 per downloaded page.

Hey, it totally worked for the music industry, so why not copy their success model.]]>Nov 24th 2009 2:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
It was designed from the onset to be an internet distributed free magazine entirely advertising supported

They do us PDF formatting and each issue is under 100 mb's
They have rich animation and interactive ad pages
It is without a doubt the best digital magazine execution I have yet to see- I did mention that it was Free Forever right, that is one of their slogans.

Even if you have some sort of problem with pdf formatting you have to like what they are doing with it

"Major" magazines could do something similar and seriously expand their scope of readers which in turn would fuel ad revenue, which is what pays the bills when all is said and done.

Publishing stupidity never ceases to amaze me.

Disclosure - I am in no way affiliated with Model Railroad Hobbyist other than being a fan of model railroading.
]]>Nov 24th 2009 2:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
This is for suckers. If you're using a computer of some kind, a website is simply a better way to get your information. A clever smart blog does what magzines used to do. some special format won't change that.]]>Nov 24th 2009 2:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 4:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
No. Website versions of magazines aren't the same. I vastly prefer reading a magazine than the same content on their website.

That said, I would also love reading an interactive PDF digitally on a tablet or whatever.]]>Nov 24th 2009 4:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 4:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 5:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/
I work for a magazine publisher and believe me, people still want their printed magazines. They want digital content too, but they don't want to pay for it.

Make no mistake though....this isn't about providing you (the consumer) with easier access to content. It's about the publishers trying to figure out a way to lift advertising revenue. This recession hit publishers very hard....not so much because people stopped subscribing, but rather because advertising revenue is down significantly.

Publishers don't serve you, they serve the advertisers. Remember that. This will not replace print magazines but will be a subscription premium or sold as an upsell to a magazine subscription.]]>Nov 24th 2009 5:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/magazine-publishers-said-to-be-very-close-to-digital-distribut/Nov 24th 2009 9:04PM