MagBlog

I swear that I wrote the previous post (about an iTunes equivalent for magazine distribution) BEFORE I ever saw this article about a magazine app for the iPhone (and also available through iTunes. The author makes an interesting point about the importance of touch and feel to magazines ("haptics"), and then relates it to the iPhone's touch screen.

Meanwhile in another part of the forest, US News & World Report thinks it is a good idea to launch a weekly paid for news magazine in pdf format. I am not sure I agree with Martin Stabe, whose cryptic tweet indicated he could see three major problems with it; I'm guessing the operative words are news, paid for and pdf. News is a highly perishable commodity, no doubt about that, but informed summary and analysis is not – at least in paper form, if the paid for inky The Week is anything to judge by. The pdf format is more tricky as Mark Potts points out in a Recovering Journalist post:

PDF products are beloved solely by printie publishers and editors who think readers want to read the news in a print-like layout, and don't understand that a) electronic delivery is a completely different format than print and b) readers really don't want to have to print out their own magazine or newspaper.

And in yet another leafy glade, Richard Addis suggests on Shakeup Media that newspaper publishers should, among other things, "Create one single national website for local news."

Labels: digital magazines, electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes, magazines, mobile, news magazine, print journalism, readertorial, weekly magazine