3:20 pm on December 2, 2009 by Kipp Bodnar
Would You Read A Digital Magazine?
Time, Inc. is in the process of developing a digital touch screen magazine format. It is clear that the magazine industry understands the need to move to digital and the need for a great experience.
The obvious first questions are will people read them and more importantly pay to read them. Once we get past those questions, it seems like the true opportunities begin. If a digital magazine experience can be created, it will open new opportunity for advertisers to leverage magazine style creative with the analytics provided by the digital medium. Additionally, this would enable magazine ads to become truly interactive and offer new execution options.
It would be cool to see some truly interactive ads and articles. That being said, I don’t know if I would be willing to pay for a subscription to a digital magazine. I have certainly been spoiled by being able to read most anything I want on line without paying for it.
This is a great question for discussion. I guess I would eventually “buy” a digital magazine. That certainly is the way of the future, but I do not think digital magazines will be anything like their printed counter parts in the eyes of the consumers. With the advent of the internet and amateur publishers, consumers are accustomed to getting digital information for free.
We tend to think that the information just gets piped into our computers (hand-helds etc.) without any costs or overhead. A magazine, we understand, has to be printed and delivered. We recognize that there are the operating costs involved, so we are willing to pay for the magazine at store which has its own overhead costs.
The second difference is the sense of ownership. I know Kindle had issues with this (just read all the reviews on Amazon for the Kindle 2). When we buy a magazine from the store, we know we own it and no one can take it away from us (except for the book gremlin that lives under the stairs). Digital content is different. Ever try to go back to a link you had saved on your “Favorites” or “Bookmarks” and realized that the content you wanted to look again doesn’t exist anymore? It’s a real bummer.
I think all business, especially the ones who are trying to go “digital” to replace their “brick, mortar, paper, etc.” products, need to think completely different rather than just make a slight “shift” towards digital. This is a whole new paradigm, and the sooner these companies figure this out, the more successful they will be.
In sum, I think that a digital magazine has you have mentioned will resemble a little more like a website or television, where you will not pay for the content but will tolerate the ads within the free content. No one will pay for the content. People only pay for a physical product.