Who moved my nuts?
Many, many moons ago I helped start Associated Newspapers online efforts. Back in those days (mid-90s) there was much debate about how traditional publishers could embrace online media – but essentially two models were emerging: replicate the content online (the most common model) or develop extensions to the core titles that maybe used some content but were likely to originate their own approach ‘in harmony’ with the parent publisher.
Oh, and then there were the others, such as Time Out, who were famously terrified about what online was going to do to the bottom line.
So a decade and a bit slips by, and online is now a major medium. Could overtake TV spend shortly. Over in the US it seems to be getting the blame for ‘killing’ newspapers.
And still we find the print publishers trying to work out how to make their digital strategies pay for the demise of traditional income sources.
The most recent example of this hit me this morning – Asda (!) are launching the wonderfully named ‘Asda Digital Newsagent‘. Yes really.
Asda Digital Newsagent
Seems to me to be a very similar model to Zinio, who I believe do pretty well in the US. And who have a pretty decent (free to air over Safari) version online for the iPhone.
But come on – from a consumer point of view, do I really want to ‘read’ a magazine on my computer? Books, well yes of course – on a handheld, for portability. And I can see some value in the iPhone pages at Zinio… though the ‘free’ price tag about the content suggests no-one expects you to replace buying the magazine that way.
Magazines are typically consumed as a treat. I remember when, at Associated, we were launching the ill-fated Charlotte Street site for femails (sic). My wife, perceptively, pointed out that you couldn’t take a website into the bath and flick through the pages. It’s a different type of experience entirely.
Meanwhile, iGizmo has set up a decent online magazine, which looks at first glance like some of the Asda Digital Newsagent titles, but adds considerable extra functionality to the flat magazine style.
So Asda’s version simply sells you an image of each magazine spread, wrapped in a bit of navigation to dress it up. And then charges you exactly what you’d pay for it in print.
I may well be proved wrong on this, but I really don’t see how this can possibly produce a worthwhile business model. For readers OR for advertisers (the ads (especially the double page spreads) are even easier to skim past than in print.
I, for one, will not be buying.
| 3.2 |
No, I wouldn’t buy that either.
My taste in magazine tends towards the … esoteric. Interestingly, both New Scientist and Scientific American have websites which both reprint the magazine articles and offer additional, web only content. For New Scientist print magazine subscribers, this is free. Scientific American, on the other hand, charges even print subscribers for some of its content.
I also often read science fiction genre magazines. You could argue that much of the content (reviews of show writers, say, or retrospectives on films or books from times past…reviews of shows, movies, graphic novels etc) is available online. However, it is nice to have a magazine in your sticky little fingers, and the content available where ever you happen to be (not to mention the images).
So, in a nutshell, I agree. Gasp.
Hi,
I to wouldn’t be paying for online magazine subscriptions. Or even for fiction novels. Reading fiction is good way of relaxing and I would like to read the plot the author builds up by the pool or sipping cola in a relaxing arm chair. Never in front of my laptop!!