Digital magazines

Borders UK is about to venture into the world of digital magazines.

http://www.nma.co.uk/borders-builds-confidence-in-digital-editions/3001220.article

People often ask us our opinion of e-zines. They tend to polarise people. The one camp thinks that they spell the inevitable death of magazines as we know them, while the ardent print supporters write them off as irrelevant. Most think that we would fall into the second camp, but we don’t.

Online magazines definitely have their place, and will only grow in popularity. However, we see them as a completely different product. Magazines are about so much more than just information. The ones that are mere information peddlers will either have to adapt, or they will die. These are the titles that are truly at risk from online media.

The really great magazines build “engagement”. There you go, our favourite word pops up again. And this engagement is much more than in relation to the words and images on their pages. These magazines stand for something, evoke conversations, communities of interest. For these magazines, online content is one arrow in their quiver.

So am I alarmed that you can subscribe to digital content from many of our favourite magazines? No – of course not. We knew this well before starting up the business. But to say that online magazines won’t spell the end for many mediocre publications is to bury our head in the sand.

Good luck to Borders UK with this initiative. It looks like for once we share a philosophical position – online and print can be complimentary. The real challenge will be in the execution. If they were to throw lots of money at us, I bet we could help them nail it. Looks like we’ll just have to get there on our own. One day.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Magazine Industry, The end of print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.