The Real Viability of Digital Editions

The Real Viability of Digital Editions
By Bob Sacks
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=exjwyocab.0.5fadzocab.cuf4zubab.1&ts=S0350&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pubexec.com%2Fstory%2Fstory.bsp%3Fsid%3D110150%26var%3Dstory

Resistance to digital magazines is futile. Here's why.
I've been inundated lately with e-mail requests about the viability of digital magazine editions. The letter that put me over the top was from an old and dear acquaintance, who is a senior production director, that said, "Digital editions of magazines will never get traction with the magazine-reading public." This is a ridiculous attitude. And if it is yours, too, bury it now with other ridiculous ideas like the world is flat and man will never fly.

Perhaps Jeff Gomez, author of the book "Print Is Dead," put it best when he wrote: "To expect future generations to be satisfied with printed books is like expecting the BlackBerry users of today to start communicating by writing letters, stuffing envelopes and licking stamps."

Do we expect magazine readers to become any less sophisticated as time and technology roll by? Things change, platforms evolve, business models adjust, and people's habits change, too. History is loaded with once-successful personal methodologies that are now nothing but antiquated dust.

This is not a discussion of whether or not print will survive. That is moot. What is important is how people will read in the future. Gomez's comment is spot on. How people read today gives us the smallest inkling of how people will read in the future. I'd be curious to know the number of words read on a computer screen (including PDAs, cell phones, e-readers, etc.) versus those read in print.

Digital editions will play a central role in the magazine business's future success. They are growing in popularity, and eventually will become ubiquitous. The only thing holding the format back presently is a perfect substrate. Computer screens are good for the task, but not perfect in their portability, flexibility and readability in various lighting conditions. What the industry is waiting for is a substrate that can match the robust nature and inherent abilities in digital editions.

The new technology is not far-off science fiction. The future is here now; it is just not widely distributed. Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Reader and several others are e-paper devices, and they are available now. These devices will not go away; they will only get better and more advanced at what they do-distribute content. In 2011, there will be full-color versions of e-paper products released. By 2025, e-paper devices will be the predominant way in which people read. And they will most likely be reading some formulation of digital-edition technology.

Perhaps we need to look at it this way: When will the digital page be more user-friendly than the printed page? Is it so impossible to foresee a future of comfort and ease holding a full-color, flexible screen that has the ability to project any book or any magazine with greater richness and depth of coverage than its printed predecessor?

Gomez hypothesized that, "It's not about the page versus the screen in a technological grudge match. It's about the screen doing a dozen things the page can't do." Digitized words should count for more. "What's going to be transformed isn't just the reading of one book, but the ability to read a passage from practically any book that exists, at any time that you want to, as well as the ability to click on hyperlinks, experience multimedia, and add notes and share passages with others," Gomez noted.

The same logic holds true for magazines. This is not a Hamlet-type argument, "to read or not to read." It is a question of what format/platform we will be most comfortable reading in the future. Nowhere in history do you find society willingly going backward. As Jerry Garcia is reported to have once said, "You are either on the bus or off the bus."

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a printing/publishing industry consultant and president of The Precision Media Group (BoSacks.com). He is also the co-founder of the research company Media-Ideas (Media-Ideas.net), and publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, circulator and almost every other job this industry has to offer.

New study on digital magazine and newspaper editions: growth, trends, and best practices

New study on digital magazine and newspaper editions: growth, trends, and best practices
CAMBRIDGE MA, US: The Gilbane Group announced the general release of Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Growth, Trends, and Best Practices, a pioneering and comprehensive study of the growing market for digital editions of periodical publications, earlier this week.

The study features statistics that, in an industry first, unify audited data from two sources (BPA and ABC) with data from unaudited publications. Highlights from the statistics include:
The number of business-to-business (B2B) publications offering digital editions has increased over 300% from 2005 to 2007, with total subscriptions also increasing over 300%.

The number of consumer publications offering digital editions has increased over 200% from 2005 to 2007, with total subscriptions also increasing over 200%.

Digital vs. print penetration of B2B subscribers is up from 13.3 to 15.0%, while digital penetration of consumer publication subscribers is down from 2.2 to 1.4%.

The 130-page report includes 22 case studies of publishers, representing several dozen digital edition titles, which showcase a number of industry best practices identified by the study's authors. These span a wide range including big-name consumer magazines (Hearst, Playboy), leading B2B publishers (Reed Business Information, American Legal Media), daily newspapers (Toronto Sun, The Guardian), and catalog and directory publishers (Welco, Canadian Donors Guide).

Insights
The report also includes insights from five publishing technology visionaries on the state of digital editions and ideas for how to make them work for publishers. Visionaries include Gloria Adams of PennWell, Brent Lewis of Harlequin Enterprises, Mike Edelhart of Infovell, Peter Meirs of Time Inc., and Marta Wohrle, formerly of Hachette Filipacchi.

Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Growth, Trends, and Best Practices presents data from leading digital publishing companies. Contributors include Nstein, Nxtbook Media, Olive Software, and Texterity (Platinum Sponsors); Advanced Publishing, YUDU Media, and Zinio (Gold Sponsors); and Audit Bureau of Circulations and BPA Worldwide (Data Sponsors).

Authors of the report are Steve Paxhia, director of publishing strategy and technology practice at Gilbane, and Bill Rosenblatt, senior analyst. Both are said to be recognised authorities on publishing business and technology strategy and have worked with many different publishing businesses and technology vendors.

Impressive growth
Said Paxhia, "Our study shows that growth to date of the number of digital publications and the number of digital subscriptions has been impressive. While this paradigm shift is still in its early stages, there are plenty of examples where publishers using today's best practices have generated impressive results. This is the most exciting time to be in publishing since Gutenberg invented the printing press."

Frank Gilbane, CEO of the Gilbane Group, said, "This new report on digital publications illustrates our continued thought leadership in the publishing market, which is embracing many of the content technologies that we have been following since 1993. At the same time, it's only one of several first-of-a-kind market studies that Gilbane Group is releasing this year."

The study is available for immediate download at http://gilbane.com/Research-Reports.html.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Time Inc. Dives Into Digi-Mags

BoSacks Speaks Out: This foray by Time Inc to get further into the Digi-mag world is absolutely brilliant. I have been a fan of Dennis publishing's Monkey Magazine for quite some time, But Monkey Magazine is very busy and almost overwhelming in its pursuit to use all the available technology. Monkey is far too busy for my more simple tastes, but then again, I am not really the intended audience. People Magazine on the other hand, uses the technology with elegance and style. It is understated and very smoothly rendered. The downloads are extremely fast, and almost seamless. This is a terrific display of prowess and my hat is off to Time Inc. Bravo!


As some of you may know I will be debating Samir Husni about the future of our industry this Thursday, June 28th at the Periodical and Book Association of America (PBAA) 21st Annual Convention in Philadelphia. I will no doubt use Time Inc and People magazine as an example of a small piece of the puzzle of the future our publishing business. Check out this link and then imagine a combination of e-paper technology and this style of publishing. Five or six years from now it will be a reality. Actually in five or six years this will probably seem very archaic, but it is still a terrific starting point.

Now before the devoted fans of Samir and the dead trees only society send me nasty notes, I feel it prudent to explain that I am not prophesizing the end of printed matter as we know it. Rather I am suggesting that at some time in the very near future printed products will not be the predominate method of information distribution for publishers. Digital distribution will be the leader, but there will still be an abundance of printed products for those who can afford them.


"The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb."
Marshall McLuhan
Canadian communications theorist educator, writer and social reformer, 1911-1980

Time Inc. Dives Into Digi-Mags
Exclusive: Taps Huge Subscriber Base for Online Issue of People
By Nat Ives http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=118739

NEW YORK

(AdAge.com) -- The exploration of those magazine-website hybrids sometimes called digi-mags is taking a big step toward mass reach this week with the introduction of People magazine's first entry in the field.

People's digi-mag Beginning today, some 1.2 million subscribers to Time Inc. magazines will receive e-mails pointing them to People's "Best Summer Ever" issue online. The print magazine, which reaches 42 million adults, according to Mediamark Research Inc., will also promote the online effort. Under scrutinyPeople can't claim to be first with a dynamic, soundtracked, video-packed e-magazine; the Europeans are ahead of us on that front. But the potential scope is new. Time Inc.'s digital extensions, of course, come under a lot of scrutiny, partly because many employees were laid off to free the resources required to fund digital efforts -- and partly because Time Inc. has one failed experiment under its belt already, the ill-fated Office Pirates site. On top of that, no one at People has any idea how well this digi-mag will perform, and understandably is keeping expectations low.

"It's just a nice, fun bonus that we're offering our consumer," said group publisher Paul Caine. 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." InteractivityThe 30-page digi-mag starts with an animated cover in which dolphins leap out of the water behind a bathing suit-clad Beyonce Knowles while a "Plus: Matthew McConaughey On The Beach!" tease floats up and down. Surf sounds play in the background. Editorial spreads allow consumers to watch movie trailers, tool through McConaughey photos, try different accessories on a mannequin wearing an Ella Moss dress and play with the advertising.

Buffering delays are eliminated by loading the issue all at once. People's staff designed most of the creative elements but worked with a digital-magazine production company called Blogform Digital Magazines to get the issue built. Unlike magazines digitally reproduced on systems such as Zinio, there's no software to install, there's a different soundtrack for every page, ads are interactive far beyond clickable URLs and all the content is original. Brad Adgate, senior VP-director of research at Horizon Media, shared the others' curiosity. "For certain demographics I think there is a certain appeal, but I don't think it's widespread yet," he said.

"It may be ahead of the curve -- but I don't think it's a bad thing to do." "This thing could pan out or it could be a dismal flop that they learn something from," he added. "This could be a template for future initiatives or this could be something along the lines of New Coke." For now, "Best Summer Ever" is a one-shot test, but expect to see more issues eventually if readers and advertisers like it. "We don't know if this is one of the tools in our kit -- or a new business," said Martha Nelson, the People Group editor. "We have a lot of things we need to find out: how big the audience can be, what kind of life it has, how much they're engaged. We're going to be looking at everything."