Magazine publishers announce joint digital distribution scheme
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted December 8th 2009 11:19AM
posted December 8th 2009 11:19AM
LEADING PUBLISHERS FORM VENTURE TO OFFER CONSUMERS NEW DIGITAL STOREFRONT AND PORTABLE READING EXPERIENCE
Initiative Will also Offer Marketers Rich Array of Innovative Advertising Opportunities
New York, NY, December 8, 2009 – Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. today jointly announced that they have entered into an independent venture to develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices.
The goal of this digital initiative is fourfold, to create: a highly featured common reading application capable of rendering the distinctive look and feel of each publication; a robust publishing platform optimized for multiple devices, operating systems and screen sizes; a consumer storefront offering an extensive selection of reading options; and a rich array of innovative advertising opportunities.
Beyond the publications of the equity partners, the venture will welcome other publishers to offer their content via this new digital platform. Publishers will derive revenue from content and advertising sales, as well as from print subscriptions.
"For the consumer, this digital initiative will provide access to an extraordinary selection of engaging content products, all customized for easy download on the device of their choice, including smartphones, e-readers and laptops," explained John Squires, the venture's interim managing director. "Once purchased, this content will be 'unlocked' for consumers to enjoy anywhere, anytime, on any platform."
For publishers and advertisers, the venture will offer an attractive, cost-efficient, consumer-focused environment. Advertisers will be able to utilize innovative formats that benefit from the highly engaging, interactive nature of this new medium. In addition to entirely new magazine and newspaper reading experiences, content selections may ultimately include books, comic books, blogs and other media.
For the hardware, software and retail industries, the initiative will provide dynamic new business opportunities by organizing a library of quality content with a common format and technical specifications. The venture partners represent an unduplicated audience of 144.6 million according to Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI). By the end of 2010, Forrester Research estimates that 10 million e-readers will be sold in the U.S., and according to m:Metrics (comScore), there will be over 50 million smartphones in the U.S. by the end of 2010.
Initiative Will also Offer Marketers Rich Array of Innovative Advertising Opportunities
New York, NY, December 8, 2009 – Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. today jointly announced that they have entered into an independent venture to develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices.
The goal of this digital initiative is fourfold, to create: a highly featured common reading application capable of rendering the distinctive look and feel of each publication; a robust publishing platform optimized for multiple devices, operating systems and screen sizes; a consumer storefront offering an extensive selection of reading options; and a rich array of innovative advertising opportunities.
Beyond the publications of the equity partners, the venture will welcome other publishers to offer their content via this new digital platform. Publishers will derive revenue from content and advertising sales, as well as from print subscriptions.
"For the consumer, this digital initiative will provide access to an extraordinary selection of engaging content products, all customized for easy download on the device of their choice, including smartphones, e-readers and laptops," explained John Squires, the venture's interim managing director. "Once purchased, this content will be 'unlocked' for consumers to enjoy anywhere, anytime, on any platform."
For publishers and advertisers, the venture will offer an attractive, cost-efficient, consumer-focused environment. Advertisers will be able to utilize innovative formats that benefit from the highly engaging, interactive nature of this new medium. In addition to entirely new magazine and newspaper reading experiences, content selections may ultimately include books, comic books, blogs and other media.
For the hardware, software and retail industries, the initiative will provide dynamic new business opportunities by organizing a library of quality content with a common format and technical specifications. The venture partners represent an unduplicated audience of 144.6 million according to Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI). By the end of 2010, Forrester Research estimates that 10 million e-readers will be sold in the U.S., and according to m:Metrics (comScore), there will be over 50 million smartphones in the U.S. by the end of 2010.
Finally I can have my entire Cracked collection in one place.
I remember scoring as a kid on about 10 years of Cracked magazines at a neighbor's yard sale for a couple of bucks. I use to love reading those.
No way. Cracked is the poor man's MAD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Obsolete_Man
I think we can all make the connection.
@Parias Yay for Murray!
@Parias
well played indeed sir.
I would love to get my manga fix. The price needs to be a single digit percentage. If they get greedy they are not getting my money. I'll just keep browsing the magazine racks.
@(Unverified)
I just hope comic book companies wake up and get in on this. (And adopt iTunes like pricing also)
So they're distributing joints, digitally? How can I download one of these joints?
How about EnMAG ?
Great. Now I will need a charging dock for my Kindle in the bathroom.
Can´t wait for this PDF distribution over bit torrent.
DRM free, and available on multiple different platforms? I think I have a name for that: the internet.
As long as I can get this on my existing tablet PC, and NOT be required to buy some expensive real, or mythical tablet device, then I may just be tempted to get a subscription to something like Digital Sky&Telescope or an AdAge.
Seems like a decent move.
im a bit confused though:
"Once purchased, this content will be 'unlocked' for consumers to enjoy anywhere, anytime, on any platform."
That doesnt exactly sound like "DRM free" to me. Or am I just paranoid?
@(Unverified) That line does sound vaguely like so-called "social" DRM. In other words, the publisher loses control (no take-backs, no install limits, no monitoring, no big brother) over it once they give it to you, but before doing so, they encode it with your personal information (CC#, for example) which you use to unlock the file before reading it the first time.
If true, that wouldn't be DRM free, but it would be far sight better than most of the DRM alternatives.
Hopefully it will be better than Zinio.
This was Tom Hanks' dream from the movie "Big".
Just make sure it doesn't come with the same bandwidth blitz that all the other "newfangled services" seem to rely on. It's actually scary to me to think about how many up-and-coming, supposedly realtime-reliable services will be using lots of live bandwidth to deliver their content. How sure are we that when everyone buys in there'll be enough network backbone to support all the mayhem?
They came up with a name for it too:
Hearst Themed Magazine Layouts
its a bit long-winded, so I hope they can think up a catchy acronym from that...
the Time magazine demo i saw is pretty damn cool.. in fact one of the coolest things i've seen in a long while... bye bye ugly stupid Kindle... bye byeeeeeee
If they had created a standards group or worked with existing standards bodies, I'd be impressed. If they worked with a well-known software development company or a conglomeration of software and hardware companies, I'd be even more impressed.
But this PR stunt doesn't say anything except to announce that these groups are getting together to do something.
It's just PR.