Lets party like its, er 2009

Russell Wilcox, CEO of E Ink in the US, has made some predictions about when technology will mean we can view magazines in an "e paper" format.

Interviewed by BtoB Magazine, Wilcox noted that :

"Currently, you can see e-paper being used in trade paperbacks. It’s a small portion of the retail world, like the Internet was at first. There’s speculation that Amazon will come out with a device. By next year there will be more than 10 companies selling electronic book readers. All of these are monochrome and around six inches wide. Next year you’ll also see bigger sizes, like eight-inch and 10-inch screen sizes, and by 2009 you’ll see 11- and 12-inch screen sizes. As they get bigger and bigger, they get to be a more and more appropriate way for magazine publishers to publish. The order for us is books, newspapers, magazines. Once we get beautiful color and images, we’ll go into the magazine world. That’ll be a year or two."

Hopefully

Lost in translation?

Exact Editions, who produce The Spectator, Prospect Magazine and others here in the UK, are venturing into continental Europe with the launch of a French operation.

The first magazine to be "digitized" in France is Le Monde diplomatique, the monthly spin off from respected French daily Le Monde.

Exact say this will be the first of a number of new products on their french store so we'll keep you abreast of developments.

Let's party like its (still) 1999

Its like deja vu at the moment.

Microsoft's Table (now known as Surface) computers were demoed on the ITV News last night - roughly 4 years after they first emerged at Comdex in the US.

Now the latest ebooks article has hit the national newspapers, with the Telegraph's Daniel Lee submitting the by now obligatory think piece on "We could soon be able to read all our books electronically".

If only. Read the whole article here

Europe's first digital newsstand launches

Billed as "My Mag, My Way", Dublin-based mymagonline has launched what it claims to be Europe’s first digital newsagent, providing 24-hour access to leading magazine publications.

Interestingly, this has been produced in conjunction with the Irish PPA; would that our own association were so bold.

Typically, the CEO, Barry Baker, has made some bold claims for the service - promising that it will become the "iTunes for magazines" - which currently don't really stack up. Load time is slow, there are a number of spelling mistakes on the site, and when I used the shopping cart it had a few er "teething problems".

Nonetheless, this is an interesting experiment on which I'll make three immediate observations...

(i) They are using a simple PDF format, which although getting round the Zinio problem (of requiring a proprietary reader), does throw up all sorts of copyright issues, and let's face it, is simply a replication of the print magazine. And as we all know from our digital reading, print versions don't make the most of interactive formats.

(ii) The success of a product like this is reliant on volume of sales, on which the merchant can take a commission. The product base is currently 15 titles so they will need high demand to make this fly.

(iii) Zinio have made more money off digital sales of adult titles in recent months than anything else. How would a model like that work in what is still a very Catholic country ?

Anyway, fascinating stuff, as they are expanding into the UK later this year, so we'll keep an eye on how they are doing.

The CountryFile

The BBC's latest show spinoff, Countryfile Magazine, is launching. Helmed by my erstwhile colleague Mr Cavan Scott, its very much a magazine for the new generation, despite its conservative country roots.

It has a podcast and an 8 page digital sampler, which you can find here.

Best of luck Cav !!

Punk? Meet Posh

A new ezine targetting Londoners has launched, entitled Punk Meets Posh.



Its an art magazine first and foremost, with an accent on photography. By the looks of things, its still in early stages of development, as the page turning (from the foot of the page) is hidden on certain browsers, and the text needs to open in a new window.

Again, its aiming for a high circulation figure - 200,000 copies, so it'll be interesting to see how it approaches garnering a readership just 40,000 less than Monkey.

New digital magazine for footie

A company in Manchester is launching a new free digital magazine targeted at football fans next month.Entitled "Catflap", it will debut on 11 September, with David Beckham as its firstcover star, and will carry the tagline: "It's not about cats, it's about football".

Er......

Even odder is the opinion of its publisher that it should achieve 100,000 downloads in just four months, which I think is a tad optimistic.My advice ? Try some SEO boys, as you can't find any reference to it on Google

Jellyfish all washed up

In a surprising move, NatMags has axed its teen girl digital magazine experiment called Jellyfish. The project, which lasted just 20 weeks ( the average life expectancy of a Box Jellyfish ironically) was, according to Duncan Edwards "...extremely valuable but we could not see a sustainable business model emerging. We have learnt a great deal about digital and email marketing, which will prove to be useful for our core business."

Which of course means that they couldn't get any ad support. The decision to close the title will likely surprise many, who have touted the online teen market as one of the major growth areas of digital media. However, the company had decided to refocus Jellyfish at an older age group of 18-to 25-year-olds and said it was still in a test period that was slated to run until September.

Lets go Outside...

Outside magazine has launched its digital edition using the Zinio publishing and distribution platform. Outside's Go, a travel and style magazine aimed exclusively at active, affluent men, will launch using Zinio in September.

IWeek for IPhone

IndustryWeek has partnered with digital publisher Texterity Inc. to launch a beta version of the first digital magazine interface and portal designed for the Apple iPhone.

As part of the demonstration, publishers have made free digital editions available to any iPhone user. Publishers are joining the beta test for the opportunity to reach a new audience and offer cross-platform convenience.
"Cross-platform, digital magazine delivery and mobile access are key elements of our audience marketing strategies for all of our more than 110 leading trade magazines," said Blair Johnson, Vice President, Business Development, Penton Media. "We're extremely pleased that IndustryWeek will be among the first publications available to users of Apple's advanced iPhone platform, through this release of Texterity's new reader."

Have a look at www.texterity.com/iphone

River and GNC make men more Healthy

River Publishing, the customer publishing firm have launched a digital version of their Healthy for Men magazine, which is produced on behalf of GNC and Holland and Barrett.



The magazine is bi monthly and has a huge print run - over 200,000 an issue, so its obviously an advantage to GNC in print savings alone.

Like their Honda project, they are using an in house digital solution and are marketing it off in house databases and viral marketing.

Well worth a look.

Japanese teenagers need to mind their digital manners

A new plague of "digital shoplifting" is evidently sweeping Japan.

Many young girls are taking camera phone picture of a new hairstyle or a new dress they might spot while browsing a magazine in a shop. They then send the picture to all their friends and comment on it. The publishers of those magazines feel they are being cheated out of valuable sales and have issued posters which warn shoppers to be careful of their "magazine manners".

Digital fashion magazine from EMAP

According to today's Brand Republic, troubled media company EMAP is to launch a fashion product in the hopes of boosting its ailing consumer division.

Emap is remaining tight-lipped about the nature of the project, but according to Media Week it will involve consumer and business-to-business aspects and build on its existing fashion portfolio, which includes weekly women's title Grazia; WGSN, the online research, trend analysis and news service for the fashion and online industries; and Drapers, the fashion trade title.

For The People

There's a great article on Time's digital magazine plans on Advertising Age.

In particular, it looks at the attempts by Time Inc, to switch readers of its flagship People Magazine onto a digital format. They are producing a unique issue called "Best Summer Ever".

Interestingly, there is overt blue chip advertiser support - Unilever, which has nine ad pages in "Best Summer Ever" and is its exclusive sponsor, got involved for the experience. "Is it a risk?" asked Irene Grieco, the Unilever senior U.S. lead print manager. "It might be. But we've always challenged our partners to come to us with new and innovative and unique opportunities."

Digital Magazines go Hollywood!

The Hollywood Reporter this week introduced The Hollywood Reporter, Digital Edition, an electronic replica of its daily publication.

In addition to English the e-magazine is available in 12 languages, including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. “The global entertainment economy is a $54 billion market with a significant portion of that coming from outside the U.S. and with a need for news, data and analysis,” said Eric Mika, senior VP-publishing director at The Hollywood Reporter, in a news release.

Interestingly, the Reporter has used digital subscriptions to raise the base price of its print offering, thus gaining subscribers and margin at the same time.

NatMags floats Jellyfish

NatMags have now uploaded the first issue of Jellyfish Magazine, a digital ezine aimed at teen girls. Naturally enough, its is heavily "celeb" orientated (if Danielle Lloyd can legitimately be termed a celebrity that is) with a healthy dose of music - including download samples - fashion, TV, gossip and of course boys.

Like Monkey, its is based on the Ceros system, with lots of video, audio content and web links. Among the things I liked were the "click to rotate" feature on the shopping pages, and the fact that it links directly to a number of social media sites like Bebo and MySpace. Additionally, the magazine has marketed itself by producing behind the scenes videos for YouTube.

Only problem is the advertising - on which this publication will stand or fall. Only Garnier have supported the launch issue, and for the magazine to gain any traction, they will need more support from big name brands.

Texterity survey shows decline in print

About 44% of digital readers have decreased their use of print in the last year, according to a survey by Texterity, which produces digital publications. The BPA Worldwide-certified digital magazine reader survey was distributed online and generated about 12,000 responses. The survey found that 89% of respondents read the digital edition the same week they receive it while 42% read it immediately. It also found that 44% of digital readers have decreased their use of print in the last year.

Why digital magazines are bollocks

Now I’m never one to pick an argument…

Particularly not with someone who normally talks a good deal of sense; in this case Peter Kirwan and the excellent Fullrunner.

In the latest edition, Pete leaps to the defence of one of Future’s chief executives, Stevie Spring. At a recent magazine conference Ms Spring attacked Dennis Publishing for “talking bollocks” about digital magazines – and in particular Monkey.

Of course, this would have nothing to do with the paucity of Future’s own digital offerings – so far behind the curve they make Tom Moloney look like Bill Gates – or the fact that Sony chose Dennis ahead of Future to mail a million Playstation 3 promotional “digimags” to their database.

No, evidently she’s piqued at Felix Dennis and his ability to make a magazine “out of not very much”.

I’m intrigued. What would Ms Spring provide advertisers and readers instead?

The path to surfing goes green

The Surfer’s Path, the first truly ‘green’ surfing magazine, today launched a digital web edition of its magazine using the Exact Editions platform for delivery. This is the first time the full contents and some of the back issues have been made available online.

The current issue and archive are obtainable for subscribers to browse and search online.They are replicas of the print edition. A trial issue of the magazine in the Exact Editions service is available for testing and free reading from the site at http://www.exacteditions.com.

BLU for you

Another recent recruit to the growing "Web first Print later" fraternity is BLU Magazine, which launched in the US last month.

Its mission statement reads as follows -


Blu is the social, fashion and lifestyles sourcebook for the United States’ most discriminating single adults. Male and female single, confident, professional, affluent adults aged 30 years and older are the most underserved demographic in the consumer magazine community. Through utilization of a sophisticated, sleek format and sharp editorialization and reporting, Blu satisfies the intellectual side of educated, professional adults, while also catering to the whimsical, spontaneous personalities typical of unmarried affluents.

Er.... whatever that means. All I can say is that if you are thinking of launching on the Internet first then make sure that you design for the web rather than the page. BLU is full of text, reversed out and otherwise, and too many pictures are hard to read.

Must try harder...

Take a Load off

A new magazine (well for me anyway) out for the PSP and PC. Load Magazine covers film, music and games and best of all, is completely free to download.

E-Paper edging toward reality

Have a look at this report from Reuters which talks about the way that electronic paper is gathering hold in the R&D departments of several major tech manufacturers.

BBC Magazines goes digital with music mag

BBC Magazines Bristol is to launch its first digital magazine in a one-off promotion for the BBC Music Magazine Awards.

The specialist publisher is to mail a free 16-page digital magazine showcasing this year's winners of the annual awards, featuring video footage of performances and acceptance speeches from the event and streamed recordings of nominated artists. The editor's letter will appear as a video message.

The magazine will also offer links to HMV.co.uk, where readers will be able to buy the featured discs.

BBC Worldwide already publishes a digital version of Top Of The Pops with Zinio, but the one off will be published on the Ceros platform, which already hosts Dennis and IPC products

Gamerzines launch PS3Zine

Cranberry Publishing have just launched the latest in their excellent series of free games magazines - PS3zine. Each issue will contain games reviews, previews and of course lots of interactive elements.

They are fantastic products - being free - and in a demo less world, why pay £6 for a print version when everything you want is free ?

A measure of their popularity is that they have over 50,000 subscribers signed up to their existing products, so they have obviously tapped a vein with gaming consumers.

Sony teams with Dennis for PS3 promo

Sony is promoting the launch of its PlayStation 3 console by sending a bespoke digital magazine to more than 1 million of its target consumers.

Sony's media agency, Manning Gottlieb OMD, has teamed up with Dennis Publishing to produce a Formula One Championship Edition e-zine on the Ceros platform used to produce Dennis' digital men's magazine Monkey.

The 12-page e-zine contains 360 degree views of the Playstation 3, links to additional Formula One content, behind the scenes footage and video clips of the game.

Interestingly, Sony are not doing this through the publishers of the Official Playstation Magazine, Future PLC.

Missed opportunity there chaps.

New digital magazine course

I'm running a new course for the PPA designed for anyone interested in implementing digital magazines.

Lots of interesting stuff and hopefully the sign of growing interest

Contract magazines go digital

River Publishing have launched a digital magazine version of their Honda contract magazine, Dream.

The online edition, hosted at www.honda.co.uk/dreamonline, is sent to Honda's email database.
As well as replicating the edition, the Flash-based format also hosts videos and enables users to book test drives. Future issues of the electronic magazine will use bespoke content filmed by River's new digital division.

The department recently launched electronic projects for American Golf and Co-op Travel Group plans to roll out digital magazines for more of River's clients.
Advertisers will be encouraged to supply rich media copy, including Flash animation and TV adverts, to fit into the magazine's look and feel and encourage better response.

Hearst to test download products

Hearst Corporation, the magazines to radio US giant, has announced plans to test a downloadable version of its Seattle Post- Intelligencer newspaper. Unsurprisingly, (given the newspapers location) it has chosen to use Microsoft software for the pilot project.

Once the content is received, readers can view the material without being connected to the Web, Hearst said it may use the software to provide downloads of its other newspapers and magazines. It claims that the download will "take no more than two minutes".

Earlier this month, Hearst announced a partnership with Verizon Wireless to provide a mobile version of its "Jusr Seventeen" magazine for wireless subscribers.

Hello, Hello

Hello Magazine has opted for Zinio as its digital publisher and has announced that the new version will be available online as soon as the weekly magazine is published in print. This version is searchable, saveable and can be bought by the issue or through an annual subscription.

How quickly will OK! follow suit ?

Its a World of Property

Outbound Publishing's flagship title "World of Property", has launched a digital version, using parent company Johnston Press proprietary reader.

Called ePaper, the reader is obviously optimized for newspaper print rather than glossy magazines, and hence the effect is somewhat grainy and hard to read. I also found the zoom in and out feature clumsy and some of the links were dead.

More work needed.

Sony gets emagazine from Dennis

Sony is rolling out an email marketing campaign in conjunction with Dennis Publishing as part of a wider push for its Sony Vaio laptop.

The campaign centres around a digital magazine which has been created for the purpose of promoting the Sony Vaio laptop to 400,000 readers on Dennis Publishing's subscription database.

The digital magazine includes voxpops, demos, an interview with David Weeks, the UK marketing manager for Windows Vista, and editorial content from PC Pro magazine.

No monkeying around with Dennis

Against the trend of men's lifestyle print magazines, digital men's magazine Monkey, the first of its kind, recorded a debut audit of 209,612 for January, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic figures released today.

The results for Monkey, launched in November by Dennis Publishing, are not directly comparable to the measurement for print editions. Dennis Publishing said the ABCe result was twice its original target of 100,000 and meant the magazine had a rapidly growing audience of 18- to 30-year-old males.

Project Celia is just for girls..

NatMags is to become the second magazine publisher to produce a stand-alone digital magazine with the launch of a weekly fashion and entertainment e-zine for teenage girls, developed under the name Project Celia.

The as-yet unnamed magazine, which could adopt CosmoGirl! branding, will launch by the end of March.The publisher has teamed up with Ceros, the software company behind Dennis’ digital men’s magazine Monkey, to produce the magazine, which is currently in test phase.

Each issue will run to at least 35 pages and will target 13 to 19-year-old girls with fashion, music, film and TV content with a humorous tone, rounding up content from websites such as YouTube and inviting readers to send in clips.As with Monkey, it will be e-mailed for free each week and will have a variety of rich media ad formats, including display ads with embedded content, advertorials, sponsorships and bumper ads that bookend video clips.

Cosmo Girl! will be one of several teen magazines posting a drop in the latest ABC figures, out this week, and the new format aims to extend NatMags’ reach among an audience that spends increasingly more time online.Jan Adcock, Cosmopolitan and Cosmo Girl! group publishing director, said it would sit alongside the print and web editions of Cosmo Girl! to offer a variety of ways to reach teenage girls.

“Teenagers are restricted by their parents to how much time they can spend online each week, so we want to offer them a filter of the best of the web,” said Adcock.Celia Duncan, editor of Cosmo Girl!, is developing the project, which will have a seven-strong editorial team. An acting editor for Cosmo Girl! is being sought.A publisher for Cosmo Girl!, cosmogirl.co.uk and Project Celia is also being recruited to replace Di Roach, who left at the end of last year to study for an MBA.

Cosmogirl.co.uk will relaunch at the end of this month.

Zinio to be acquired by equity company

INVESTMENT COMPANY GILVEST LP HAS acquired electronic publisher Zinio Systems, the companies will announce today. Financial terms aren't disclosed; Richard Maggiotto, CEO and president of Zinio, will continue to head the company.
Zinio, which offers a downloadable electronic reader, currently distributes more than 1,200 digital magazine titles, including TV Guide, Men's Health, Black Enterprise and Penthouse.
Maggiotto said that later this year, Zinio intends to roll out a new version of its downloadable electronic reader as well as a browser-based reader. The new product will make content "much more accessible and much more discoverable" by consumers, he said. For instance, with the upcoming reader, consumers will more easily be able to preview magazines and browse through their pages before purchasing them. The new reader also will be compatible with both Macs and PCs, said Doug Carlson, who manages Gilvest.

Playboy on CD

Playboy is digitising every piece of its content.

Every story, every picture, that has been in the magazine since it was launched by Hugh Hefner in 1953 – including the famous nude picture of Marilyn Monroe that ran on the cover of the first issue – will be accessible on DVD later this year.

All 630 issues of the magazine are to be transferred on to six discs – one for each decade – which will be available for $100 each. It is believed to be the first time that a magazine known for its sex and nudity has been digitalized.

Just after the announcement, Playboy’s website was inundated for stories and pix of Anna Nicole Smith, the sexy pin -up girl, who died mysteriously in Florida last week and has been making headlines every since.

Playboy has for some time had a website, but no archival system. Old copies of the magazine, if anyone wanted to look up an article or picture, were until now only accessible in bound volumes.
From now on anyone who wants information on say Norman Mailer has only to type in his name and pull up every reference to the American writer in the magazine since Playboy was launched.

World's oldest newspaper goes digital

For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden's Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer.

The world's oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace. The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden's Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. It's a fate, many ink-stained writers and readers fear, that may await many of the world's most venerable journals. ``We think it's a cultural disaster,'' said Hans Holm, who served as the chief editor of Post-och Inrikes Tidningar for 20 years. ``It is sad when you have worked with it for so long and it has been around for so long.''

Queen Kristina used the publication to keep her subjects informed of the affairs of state, Holm said, and the first editions, which were more like pamphlets, were carried by courier and posted on note boards in cities and towns throughout the kingdom. Today, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, which means mail and domestic tidings, runs legal announcements by corporations, courts and certain government agencies - about 1,500 a day according to Olov Vikstrom, the current editor. The paper edition was certainly not some mass- market tabloid.

It had a meager circulation of only 1,000 or so, although the Web site is expected to attract more readers, Vikstrom said. The newspaper is owned by the Swedish Academy, known for awarding the annual Nobel Prize in Literature. But it recently sold the publishing rights to the Swedish Companies Registration Office, a government agency.

Despite its online transformation, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar remains No. 1 on a ranking of the oldest newspapers still in circulation compiled by the Paris- based World Association of Newspapers. ``An online newspaper is still a newspaper, so we'll leave it on the list,'' WAN spokesman Larry Kilman said.

Perooz this...

Read magazines on your iPod.....

For some people, this will be too much work. But for young men, interested in hot cars or hot women, this may be useful. Perooz.com offers free downloads of magazines, movie and video game trailers, and new music for hand held devices including the iPod , Sony PSP, and Zune as well as Palm Treo and Blackberry models. The magazine pages (they're actually images which, on the video iPod, are transferred to "Photos" folders) are certainly readable if you’ve got nothing else to do while standing in line at the post office. Content offerings include GQ, Car & Driver, Maxim and Stuff. The site says tech, news, and business content are "coming soon."

Book publisher buys digital

HarperCollins has bought a stake in NewsStand, whose LibreDigital unit creates digital versions of books. Brian Murray, group persident of News Corp's HarperCollins, will join NewsStand's board of directors.

TV Guide goes digital

TV Guide has joined the majority of television shows it writes about--and gone digital.
The digital edition of TV Guide was launched earlier this week by electronic publisher Zinio Systems, adding the title to a list of more than 400 magazines that the company now sells and distributes worldwide.
TV Guide's digital version contains all of the magazine's print elements, including celebrity coverage, program reviews and recommendations. The magazine also covers trends in the TV landscape and gives readers behind-the-scenes looks at broadcast, cable and syndicated shows, and new DVDs.
Since switching its format from digest-form to full-size and cutting its base ad rate by two-thirds, TV Guide has seen its circulation tumble almost 60% to roughly 3.8 million. But Zinio's president and CEO Rich Maggiotto says the digital version's immediacy will please the magazine's readers. "I believe our readers will love the features and functionality that are available in this new medium," adds Ian Birch, editor in chief of TV Guide and chief content officer of Gemstar-TV Guide International.
"With TV Guide's digital edition, readers will be able to have a truly interactive experience with the magazine," Maggiotto says. "The availability of this insightful content in a digital format will allow for up-to-date information and news about the shows and stars covered in their articles."

Gathering pace...

US digital publisher NXTbook Media reported a 254 percent increase in sales and 359 percent more traffic to its digital magazines in 2006. Additionally, the number of pages viewed per NXTbook increased nearly 10 percent.

NXTbook CEO Michael Biggerstaff said in a statement that the amount of video streamed from the company’s digital magazine editions increased to hundreds of gigabytes per month. “We're streaming the amount of video each week that we saw in the entire year of 2005," he said.

Interesting. Particularly the amount of video being served - which is undoubtedly down to broadband usage increasing worldwide.

In your dreams

Every now and then, I get a press release that is really worth sharing with the outside world. And this one really takes the biscuit.

Its from a company called MTomic, who have patented.... wait for it.... a marketplace for content and digital collectibles where users can buy, sell, trade, swap and resell digital items at 'buy it now' prices or auction.

And how does digital content become "collectable" ? Well, MTomic have evidently developed a system that "wears" the relevant content.

Why bother ? Listen to this gem from the company's CEO.

"If your ringtone is this week's No.1 hit it's old news by next Monday - unless it has a unique feature or is a key item in a Collectible Series. Then it's cool and sought after. It lives on as a Digital Collectible that can be traded or treasured!"

Nurse, the screens !!

Dazed. And Confused ?

The dear old Grauniad is finally on the case with digital magazines.

In this week's "Organ Grinder" piece, Jemima Kiss admits "Actually though, I confess I'm warming a little to the concept of digital editions, at least for fashion mags."

God loves a sinner...

Find the piece here.

Electronic Ink

Design News has an interesting piece on electronic ink - and how it could possibly save newspapers.

Have a look here

Cosmetic Surgery Answers issue 2 free to download

Excite Publishing has today released issue 2 of Cosmetic Surgery Answers, the first magazine in the UK to deliver independent and trusted advice on cosmetic enhancement – absolutely free.

Available from http://www.cosmeticsurgeryanswers.co.uk/, the magazine offers a range of features, advice and expert opinion. This issue contains ; a definitive guide to fillers (including Botox and Restylane), all you need to know about liposuction, rhinoplasty and nasal surgery, surgery in Prague, and the latest information on trends and pricing.

The content of the magazine has been written by a number of leading experts in cosmetic treatment as well as a team of respected newspaper and magazine journalists. The interactive abilities of the magazine means that readers can quickly navigate to the section of their choice and in future issues will be able to view streaming video and audio clips.

John Weir, Cosmetic Surgery Answer’s publisher, says “The fantastic response to our first issue has seen over 15,000 readers download the magazine. This demonstrates not only the latent demand for an independent, authorative publication on cosmetic surgery, but also the potential of digital magazines.”

Cosmetic Surgery Answers is available to download from the website, http://www.cosmeticsurgeryanswers.co.uk/

VIV is Live !!

A new women's magazine has launched in the US. Whilst this is not at all unusaual - at least 30 were launched in 2005 - this one is different in the sense that it is digital ONLY.

Hurrah. At long last someone has had the balls to put out a digital only magazine in the women's sector and it looks absolutely great. It contains rich media files, including flash demos, provided by Zinio, but perhaps the best thing is the little "Viv" button on every page, which allows you to set up the pages as interactive.

Great vision, and I hope it does well.

Hot Prospect

Current affairs magazine Prospect has unveiled a digital edition through Exact Editions.

A trial issue of the current affairs magazine is available to read on exacteditions.com, and those who subscribe will be able to read back copies from January 2005 onwards.It will be available on the same day the magazine is published in print and is an exact replica of the offline version.

Dennis Monkey about

Dennis has confirmed its next venture in the lads' mags arena will be Monkey, a free weekly e-mag aimed at 16 – 30 year men.

The publisher has had an online holding site monkeymag.co.uk, promising "sex, fun, sport, gear and cars" since August but had declined to speculate on the exact nature of the product.

Dennis has now revealed that Monkey will be delivered in a weekly email to on-line subscribers from November 1 and its format, will according to its makers, "bridges the gap between familiar print products, online sites and newsletters, with the advantages of all three".

Monkey will have a conventional magazine layout, with approximately 50 turning pages and the traditional cover girl front page but also video clips of girls, jokes and film trailers in its digital format, produced in conjunction with e-edition publishers, Applecart. It can be viewed online or saved as a PDF.

Monkey's launch has been trailed via Maxim's website, maximonline.co.uk James Carter, Director of Dennis NPD said: "Monkey will be a cheeky, sexy mix of girls, sport, cars and humour with around 50 pages of content making it ideal for consumption at home or in the workplace.

"We'll have the best viral videos, the latest music videos and movie trailers, games which you can actually play, sexy girl shoots – all the things which you get flat and static in traditional magazine brought to life on a platform men are using more and more as their primary source of entertainment and information."

Clarkson wants emagazines !!

Great piece in the Sunday Times today. Petrolhead and friend of environmentalists everywhere, Jeremy Clarkson, has backed reading magazines in digital format.

Bemoaning the fall in magazine sales on the newsstand, he said "Surely its possible to download a copy of Country Life via my wireless internet connection"

Soon, Jeremy, soon.

Students of Digital

The MPA - thats the Magazine Publishers of America for the uninitiated - have launched a pilot programme to deliver digital magazines to students. The publishers involved, including Business Week and Hearst, hope to get around 4 to 5,000 subscribers via this test.

Will the PPA here follow suit ?

Top of the (digital) Pops

A warm welcome to digital publishing for BBC Magazines, who announced today that their teen magazine, Top Of The Pops, is going digital next month.

The magazine, like its eponymous TV show, had been consigned to the dustbin in print, so this marks a seismic change for the corporation.

Details of the new offering are sketchy, except to say that subscriptions will be pegged at £9.99 a year - substantially cheaper than the £2.10 that readers were previously expected to pay.

The Long Tail

Folio Magazine has a really interesting piece on "the long tail" - Chris Anderson's theory on economic demand.

It should be required reading for ANY senior magazine executive.

Find it here

Welcome Aboard !!

The latest addition to the digital fraternity are Cosmetic Surgery Answers Magazine

Best of luck !!

Over the moon

A nice addition to the growing portfolio of digital magazines is Mercury Moon Music, which you can find here.

Its a bit folksy, but encouragingly, they are proposing to do it regularly, and even charge for it.

Best of luck guys !

Grauniad leads the way

I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but well done The Guardian !! they've announced today that readers will be able to download a small 12 page version of the newspaper called G24, which they can then print out and read.

Targetted at commuters,its a big step forward in personalising content for users.

Provided they sub it of course.

Wiped clean

I was amused to see that America's favourite housewife and ex felon, the blessed Martha, has adopted downloadable PDF's on her website

Ironically, amongst the many useful household tips ("removing steak kives from your child" etc) there is a one page guide to expunging those nasty stains.

Personal as well perhaps ?

Undercover Agents

In a bizarre move, reminiscent of the newsstand, Zinio have created a separate business unit called (wait for it) Undercover Mags. Effectively, this is a "top shelf" site which is only open to 18 year olds and contains um.. "adult material".

Not unreasonable you might think, but get this - Penthouse is being flogged through the new site, but Playboy remains on Zinio.

Eh ? Is Playboy more consumer friendly or is it a contract issue.

I think we should be told.

The Times (they are a changin')

Times Online is this week soft-launching its first e-magazine, called Select, using repurposed content from the paper's weekend magazine and the Sunday Times.
Designed by Tomaso Capuano, the man behind the FT's luxury monthly colour magazine How to Spend It, the "e-zine" allows viewers to "turn" pages and interact with articles via the paper's website.

Select will include travel pieces and interviews with the likes of Frank Lampard and Gordon Ramsay. Times Online has signed up Jaguar as its sponsor and partner.

Digital readers "highly engaging" shocker !

Texterity, which offers digital magazines, has released the results of a BPA Worldwide-certified survey showing that 91% of readers take action after reading an ad in a digital edition. The survey was sent to 31,596 digital magazine readers of 45 different publications, both b-to-b and consumer. More than 20% of recipients completed the survey. According to the results, 83% of digital readers looked at an advertiser’s Web site; 41% forwarded information about an advertiser to a friend or colleague; 37% contacted an advertiser for more information; and 32% recommended a product or service. Perhaps most important, 24% of recipients said they purchased a product based on the ad in a digital edition.

FreE Books

Celebrate the 35th anniversary of free eBooks and the Project Gutenberg. For its birthday month of July, Gutenberg plans to offer free, permanent download access to over 1/3 million books.

So, save yourself about £10 a pop and get literate !!

Google goes Olive ?

From John Battelle's excellent Searchblog...


Despite rumors the past few weeks that Google was going to buy Olive for $75 million, after looking the software company up and down in a week of intensive interviews Google then walked away. Olive software converts various data files (like PDFs, microfilm) into xml, accessible to search.

Is it a coincidence that a large portion of Olive's employes are based in Israel and Google is opening new offices in Israel? Silicon Beat muses: Is Google turning into a Microsoft? Checking out the goods, and then going back and building it themselves? Or hiring away the better employees? Here's what one person said: "Google learned a LOT about Olive... everything."

Catalogue the future

A good report on eMarketer here, which demonstrates the rapid pace of catalogues moving online.

Last year in the US, emarketer estimates that online - only catalogues more than doubled from 2004.

The reason ?

Well print costs would be one, but the response from online catalogues is now outstripping their print cousins.

Over the past ten years, the three catalog categories showing the strongest growth were Automotive, which grew from 270 to 542 titles; Education, growing from 334 to 513 titles; and Apparel & Accessories, up from 677 to 750 catalogs.

De Tijd is turning

Well the Belgian newspaper of the same name is anyway...

This month, De Tijd, started testing versions of electronic paper, a device with low-power digital screens embedded with digital ink — millions of microscopic capsules the width of a human hair made with organic material that display light or dark images in response to electrical charges.

This is only one test of new e-paper devices competing to become the iPod of the newspaper business. Other e-paper trials are being undertaken by the paper Les Echos,and the Guardian here in the UK.

While it is still very nascent technology - at this point, the e-paper cannot display color, offering just 16 shades of gray, and the screens are rigid - there is no doubt we are moving toward the type of accessible device outlined in Minority Report.

Oh well, enough dreaming, back to the 18th century broadband...

E by Gum

There's a interesting piece on e-book adoption from the BBC here.

Well worth a read, but its findings could well have been published 2/3/4/5 years ago, namely..

"But the biggest barrier to e-book world domination surely has to be the screen. An LCD display has much lower resolution than paper."

Polarisation

I came across a great new counter culture magazine today - www.polarinertia.com.

Some great pictures.

Keeping Counsel

ALM, has just announced the launch of digital editions of Corporate Counsel and Law Technology News. Access to the sites is free to qualified subscribers. Corporate Counsel, with a print circulation of 43,000, targets general counsel and in-house attorneys. Law Technology News, with a print circulation of 40,000, covers legal technologies, products and services.

Should stop them chasing ambulances anyway.

In Exact

In a move to have erstwhile editor Boris Johnson spinning in his grave (when he eventually reaches it), The Spectator has gone digital.

Using the Exact Editions platform, The Speccie hopes to provide overseas readers with a wb based solution to keep them in touch with whats happening here in Blair's Britain.

Expect a lot of expats in the Algarve will now be apoplectic over their screens instead of their Telegraph.

Join The Q

Its been a while since I looked at Q Mags site, but a recent conversation with Scott Johnson, their VP of sales made me check back with them (as my American cousins would say).

Its small steps, but they seem to have a few specialist titles on board - Armchair General, Tennis Magazine and Top Pair - which I was disappointed was actually a gambling magazine - to name but a few.

It'll be interesting to see how they manage to build on this toe hold against Zinio in coming months.

Penthouse View

Good news for the vertically challenged - those fruitless trips to newsagents, only to find the top shelf is out of reach, will soon be a thing of the past.

Penthouse Magazine is going digital.

Now styling itself as a "men's lifestyle magazine", Penthouse will use the digital platform of Zinio who already handle both Playboy and Mystique.

Who is going to be first to try the ultimate online/offline co - promotion ? A packet of screen wipes is the obvious thing....

Military Intelligence ?

Yes, yes I know - its an oxymoron.

However, Penton have found a use for it in their latest digital magazine,
Military Electronics.

Now I warn you ; this isn't at the cutting edge deisgn wise. But it is packed with useful information.

If you happen to be in a cave in Afghanistan for instance, with er "limited" access to a library, finding out about the capabilities of the latest American listening devices via a downloadable magazine could be very useful.

Just a thought.

Reading with Sony

I'm in Las Vegas for the annual techfest that is CES. Some interesting stuff in amongst all the usual parties, boozing and ahem "distractions"

In particular, I'm very interested in the Sony Reader. For years now, companies like Microsoft have been trying to get people to read content on a proprietary reader - with little success. Sony have tried before, but the difference this time is that the device is small, (about the size of a paperback), avoids backlighting (and hence eyestrain) and critically, they have a number of major publishers on board - specifically Random House and Penguin.

It'll be interesting to see how this does..

Happy Christmas

I'd like to wish all readers a very happy Christmas. Hope you can keep away from your screens for a few days !!

Back online in January.

Hard to Digest

Friend of the terminally unemployed and perennial draft excluder Readers Digest is going digital.

Zinio will be producing the digital copies, but before you get too excited, remember that once you are on the list, you'll never get off !!

Every page tells a story

Talk about revolutionary.

CNET, the website that talks tech (at shuddering length) has developed a new feature called - wait for it- "page turn".

This new feature allows users to, yes, turn the page of catalogues direct on the site.

Now if only Zinio had thought of that...

Get into the Grooves

Its enough to put the industry into a spin...

In December, Grooves Magazine, which is now 6 years old, is going digital only. It is of course being driven by ever increasing print costs, but like many of the turntablists the magazine covers, its editor is spinning the move to both fans and advertisers as a positive.

They are offering full colour pages to advertisers at a fraction of the cost of print pages, and readers of course will get a nice shiny new digital magazine on their desktops, courtesy of Texterity.

Now where's my copy of Dark Side of The Moon....

Can we go to the Zoo ?

Thats what all the kids will be asking once they get their hands on a digital copy of lads mag Zoo, EMAP's leading mens weekly here in the UK.

Its packed with fun features, giveaways and....

Oh alright then, yes its got lots of naked girls....

Oh well.

Zinio to quit UK ?

Rumours reach me that after just 8 months, Zinio are looking to reduce their presence in the UK to just a franchising operation. While this is not entirely unsurprising, given that sign ups to new ventures have been scarce, its not welcome news for the long term health of the industry.

Eeee Diets

As they say in Lancashire.

Well actually this is the website eDiets, which has a really nifty magazine which you can scroll though on its site.

Free to view as well.

Now all you have to deal with is the guilt of Xmas...

Not Exactly

Got a prototype version of a new service - Exact Editions - today.

Nothing out of the ordinary ; a fairly standard PDF layout, zoom functions etc, but the pages loaded slowly and by the look of things this is just a beta version, so no clue yet as to the payment mechanism.

More later.

Digital in Vogue

The doyenne of the British glamour press, Vogue magazine is teaming up with O2 to provide pages from the magazine straight to users mobile phones.

The initiative, which promises readers an "exclusive peak into the glamorous world of fashion", will form part of O2's new section, cunningly called "Style".

I, Pages

Canadian digital firm iPagez is entering the US market this month, claiming to have a raft of innovative features.

One of them had better be a bullet proof business plan.

The Future ? I think not

Much puff from Future USA on the launch of their new magazine Future Snowboarding.

To create a "groundbreaking digital magazine", they have used Magwerks' technology, which I wouldn't have predicted.

What I would have predicted (had they asked) is that it wouldn't work.

Which it doesn't.

Hey ho.

Creative accounting

"The floodgates will open."

That's the opinion of the editor of Accountancy Age, after his title announced they were going to include digital; subscribers in the audit figure.

The Press Gazette has the details

Digital Information

CMP owned Information Week is claiming that it will add 60,000 digital subscribers to its ratebase.

The more cynical observer might think this has something to do with a falling print base. Perish the thought.

Interestingly, they have opted for Olive Software's XML platform, due to its capacity for animating both editorial and advertising content.

American Accent

There's a new kid on the block - Accent Magazine. Targetted at college students, it claims to be a better alternative than existing print news magazines.

We shall see.

The premiere issue is downloadable as a Flash file - some 20mB, so you may need to be patient.

Publish for Profit

Folio Magazine, the trade journal of record for the magazine indutsry in the US, have put a Digital Magazine channel on their website.

While this in itself is worthy of celebration, the content is a good introduction to the benefits of "going digital" and although its skewed toward the BtoB market, there are a load of applications there for consumer publishers as well.

Free Magazines !!

To celebrate the launch of their new global network, Zinio are giving away sample copies of their new worldwide partners products. Lots to choose from including the intriguingly named
Baan Lae Suan.

Go here for the site

Enjoy

Habla Digital ?

Seems the war for foreign language readers on digital platforms is hotting up. This week, both Texterity and Zinio announced initiatives designed to attract overseas readers to their respective newsstands.

Zinio have cobbled together a "global network", encompassing titles from Spain, France, Sweden and a number of other countries. Meanwhile, Texterity yesterday announced that it will roll out what it is calling the first Spanish language interface for digital magazines.

The interface, designed to allow readers to “browse, navigate, save and search” Spanish magazines in the same language they are published, launches with a pair of b-to-b publishers—Stagnito Communications’ Industria Alimentcia and Watt Publishing’s Industria Avicola—and Meredith’s recently-launched Siempre Mujer getting the full-on digital treatment.

Let battle commence.

Online gamble

Future have copied the idea they tried first in 2003 to create a "pioneering new digital version" (sic) of Online Gambler.

No doubt in response to Dennis Publishing activity (with their Total Gambler product), the interactive version will be available to, and ignored by, readers of over a million other Future magazines, via CD and DVD covermounts.

Strikes me the only gamble being taken here is by advertisers pouring more and more money chasing ever more elusive players...

Miss Digital ?

As mentioned previously, Playboy are spending more and more time building their digital presence. There are now six different products available via Zinio, as the magazine continues to pioneer new routes to market in an attempt to tackle a Maxim - led market.

It may also have a good deal to do with Playboy missing its ratebase last month and dropping ad pages.

Must stop now, my wrist is getting tired........

Join the Q

Regular readers of this site (you know who you are) will know my fascination with the Q Mags site and its collection of industry ephemera.

The latest titles to join the list are Desktop Engineering, Embedded Systems and the improbably named Policy Today, which thinks that "principled decision making lies at the heart of republican democracy."

Hmm. One for Mr Bush's desktop methinks

Top Shelf

Looks like the floodgates have opened. Zinio have agonised over the placement of er "specialist" men's titles on their site for some while, so its interesting to note that there are now over 15 titles in this sector, with adult content much to the fore.

Indeed, Playboy's Lingerie Special is now number one in terms of sales, compared with a year ago, when it was PC Magazine.

Hope those Tablet PC's are wipeable.

Make Do !

O'Reilly's excellent Make Magazine have an excellent digital version. You need to be a subscriber to get the full version, but you can still download some samples as a PDF.

The make blog attracts around 100,000 page views a day ; which is by my calculation around 100,000 more than this blog.

Digital in growth shocker !!

A report from Zinio has outlined the fact that digital magazines are increasing their penetration of the media mix (or something like that).

Key facts from the survey, grandly entitled "The Digital Publishing Report" include -

• 33.7% growth in number of titles
• 25.9% growth in circulation
• 38.4% growth in deliveries

Consumer publications have higher average digital circulation, though more business publications have gone digital.

Use of rich media in digital publications grew 188% from Q1 2004 to Q1 2005, based on the report.

Digital providers control the lion's share of digital magazine distribution. 85.6% of all digital circulation was executed with a digital provider rather than by the publisher using PDF.

The Digital Alternative

Nxt Books have announced that they are working with a firm called Digital Alternatives (posts passim) in the UK.

Alternatives will be targetting the B to B sector and have announced that they have already digitised BRAD, the bible of magazines, newspapers and periodicals.

What a service to humanity.

Paper ? Pah

Nice piece by Seana Mulcahy on how digital is changing the way that people read their news.

Go here

IT's 100

Business Week are producing a special digital version of their IT 100 supplement.

This special issue covers the world’s top 100 technology companies. The digital version of the magazine is intended to showcase multimedia audio and video, including interactive executions of both rich editorial and advertising.

Sounds good.

Better late than never

Zinio has announced the signing of agreements with AccesoGroup in Spain, Zinio Systems Norden AS in Scandinavia and Taurus in Poland. Zinio said the companies will sell its products and services to magazine publishers locally and maintain online newsstands for direct consumer subscriptions.

Go digital - or your money back

Texterity are offering clients their money back if they are not satisfied with their move to the digital platform. Too good to be true ? Well, according to their spokesperson (the splendidly named Cimarron Buser - an anagram if I've ever seen one) the offer means "Within six months we will contractually agree to bring the digital magazine to a break-even point."

In English that means that Texterity agree to either a refund or that they will continue to work with the publisher free of charge to achieve success.

Of course there are caveats - the offer only applies to BtoB publications - but I think this is a good move. Texterity should be applauded for trying to kick start the market and it will be interesting to see how the other vendors respond.

Revenews

One of my favourite magazines - Revenue - is going digital with Zinio. This is great news for those of us outside the US, hungry for an affiliate marketing magazine that isn't full of smug self serving imbeciles telling you the blatantly obvious.

Like er Revolution for instance.

NXT Up

NXT Books has announced version 2.0 of its browser based interface. Promised improvements include a slicker interface, better graphics resolution and improved linking.

We shall see.