Digital magazines receive limited demand

John Menzies new magazine service, "Magazines On Demand" has issued a press release claiming 20,000 registrations and downloads in its first six weeks of operations.

Impressive ? Well that largely depends on your interpretation of success. 20,000 is roughly the circulation of a niche magazine, so this isn't quite critical mass yet.

Of the downloads, I'd suggest most are to get the free copy of Total Film, so I'd be very interested to see who (and how many) have actually paid for a copy.

I think therefore iMotor

Another addition to the digital magazine world as Dennis Publishing launches digital motoring magazine iMotor next month.

The "world-first" digital magazine, emailed to readers free each fortnight, will contain magazine and TV content, with test-drive videos, photographs, articles and reviews.

Dennis promises "TV-style entertainment, web-style topicality and magazine-style authority and depth" in the new format.

Launching on July 17, the digital magazine targets ABC1 men aged 30 and over.

iMotor will draw on content from the company's motoring titles evo, Auto Express and Octane.

"iMotor is our latest digital magazine offering, using the same pioneering page-turning technology and video platform as Monkey and the recently launched iGizmo," said Bruce Sandell, head of new product development at Dennis Publishing.

Should digital be free ? Texterity thinks so..

Texterity has been selling digital subscriptions separate from print subs.

But with only 1 percent of subscribers opting to pay extra for the digital version, Texterity has decided to offer the digital edition free to print subscribers.

“We’ve been trying for years to sell digital subscriptions instead of print,” said Martin Hensel, president of Texterity. “That really hasn’t worked.”

Hensel believes the new model will give publishers other ways to encourage trial, communicate with subscribers by email and lower publishers’ renewal costs. “Digital is a way to have low-cost sampling,” he said.

He expects that in a year’s time, 15 percent of subscribers will opt to add the digital edition.

Texterity also launched a new site, Coverleaf.com, where readers can browse through and buy its clients’ digital editions. Texterity’s roughly 70 consumer magazine clients include Meredith Corp.’s Better Homes and Gardens; and Condé Nast’s Bon Appétit.

NxtBook does it TxtBook

Nxtbook Media has launched a free (to Nxtbook Media customers) digital magazine newsstand designed to benefit publishers by driving subscription requests directly back to the publishers’ websites. The Nxtstand allows readers to search by magazine title or keyword and after viewing their results, users can either preview the most recent digital edition of the publication or click on the subscribe link which will transfer the user directly to the publishers’ website.Unique to Nxtbook is the fact that all revenue from subscriptions earned goes to the individual publisher and because all subscription data is collected by the publisher, Nxtbook will not collect, share or market to any users of the system.

Hell freezes over

Stevie Spring, CEO of Future, who last year memorably announced at the PPA that Monkey, Dennis Publishing's digital title was "bollocks" seems to have had a Damascean experience.

Announcing yesterday the launch of Qore - a digital magazine for PS3 owners in the US, Spring announced that " our strategy is to create powerful integrated media solutions for readers and advertisers across different platforms, in print and online."

Hmmm. More like they've just spotted that copy sales aren't as good on PS3 as they once were on PS2.

Menzies goes digital magazine mad

This is interesting.... most particularly because evidently laptops in Scotland don't have hard drives...

John Menzies Digital has launched a service to enable customers to buy and then download digital versions of the UK's top magazines.

The Magazines on Demand service has already signed up the likes of publisher Bauer to the service. It will also be white-labelled to established etailers, including WHSmiths, with which it has already done a deal.

The Magazines on Demand website works in conjunction with free-to-install software and enables users to download the latest issues of magazines at any time as well as viewing, storing and searching digital magazines bought from the site.

John Menzies, which sold its retail business to WHSmiths in the late 1990s in order to concentrate on its distribution business, claims the key feature of the system is the ability to save magazines to a USB stick.

The USB stick system will enable customers to read the magazines on any computer, even one without delivery software installed.

Simon Clough, managing director at John Menzies Digital, said, "We're delighted to be working in partnership with WHSmith to launch this new service. The concept of buying digital magazines is in itself very new, but bringing such a huge range of top titles together in one place for UK consumers is unprecedented