MagBlog

Consider the following, taken from a feature about online shopping by David Teather in yesterday's Guardian:

The likes of Amazon and Asos are facing increasing competition from the high-street brands, many of which are beginning to take online retailing more seriously. When John Lewis launched its website in 2001, the aim was to eventually generate the sales of a medium-sized store – about £100m. Last year they reached £327m, outstripping its most successful department store and accounting for about 13% of the John Lewis division of the group. Online sales continue to grow at about 30% a year.

Robin Terrell, managing director of John Lewis Direct, says the site has become increasingly important as around half of all shopping visits start with the website, as customers research prices and range. "The website now represents the brand. People are researching more and more online before visiting the shop and we have really been working to join up the customer experience."

When I read it a little bell went off and I thought, "What if you could forge a hypothesis for magazines based on that?"

So here it is.

Print magazines represent the bricks-and-mortar retailer, the keeper of the brand name. The online sites of those magazines represent the retail website, where people visit to do their research. If they like what they find they may then visit the material artefact (the print magazine).

Hmm, doesn't look quite so good out of my head and into type but there's something there. It's not a Murdochian (senior or junior) re-education programme, quite.

If it is true that people will visit a retail website before they make the further, and far more complicated and time-consuming, effort to visit the physical shop, then why should it not be possible, given the appropriate incentives and enticements, to do the same with a magazine in online and print forms?

The biggest question is why – if it is true – people do this? Why not just buy online if you can? Does John Lewis keep some things back for the shop only? Maybe they like visiting the shop? Maybe it becomes part of a larger "emotional" experience?

If we can find some answers to that (and I bet someone has them) perhaps we can forge some new hypotheses. We should certainly remember that print-on-paper has some advantages and pleasures to offer that online will never replicate, and play those up (yes, haptics again, but also lovely big pictures rich in detail, intricate graphics, ultimate put-down-ability).

Or perhaps I'm just suggesting the freemium business model, with online as the free product and print as the premium product.

But it's important to think about that relationship, and worth trying to find models elsewhere that can be adapted to the particular circumstances of magazines.

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• "Microsoft Offers To Pay News Publishers To Pull Content From Google" and related posts (paidcontent.org)

Labels: amazon, Chris Anderson, digital magazines, Free, haptics, political economy, print magazines

If screen size is the key to creating a satisfactory "magazine" experience on a handheld digital device (hdd), something the size of a Kindle should be better than an iPhone – and something more like a sheet of A4 better again. This is what Hearst, the American publisher of magazines and newspapers, seems to be hoping, according to various reports (well summarised on this post from CNet).

Implementing a tied-in device could also give Hearst the opportunity to try an iTunes like subscription service, and such a service could be extended to include other publishers, thus creating the Amazon-style service proposed in previous posts.

Fortune magazine's first report of the Hearst hdd
The Wall Street Journal on Hearst's plans to charge for content

Labels: amazon, digital magazines, digital revenue, electronic magazines, haptics, Hearst, iTunes, magazines, print magazines, subscriptions

I have previously commented on the (possible) connection between the look and feel of touch screen phones and their ability to provide a substitute for - or alternative to - the look and feel of paper, especially where magazines are concerned.

Now a survey by reevoo.com has confirmed that not just any old touch screen will do. The iPhone and LG's KC910 are the only two models that achieve high ratings. Charles Arthur summarises the findings well in today's Guardian Technology section.

What does this mean for the mobile magazine? I guess that until other phones achieve the same usability as the iPhone and the KC910 that take up will be limited, and that of those two the iPhone must be hands down winner not only because it has sold so well but because it has a direct link to iTunes and the AppStore, which between them provide an easy route to market for both producers (not just of magazines, of course) and consumers.

Labels: electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes iPhone, magazines, mobile

Hey ho, behind the times as usual. Andrew Losowsky reported the first magazine/iTunes/iPhone combination last year on Magtastic Blogsplosion.

Any further sightings or corrections gratefully received and acknowledged.

Labels: digital magazines, digital revenue, electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes iPhone, mobile, web 2.0

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

I have mentioned the science of haptics a few times in this blog – basically the sensual feel of a magazine when you handle it. I came across an actual haptics machine, quite by chance; I don't know what it does or how it does it but if you would like to learn more, check out Quanser.com.

Failing that, you know you can rely on Wikipedia, for information about Haptic Technology and, more relevant to our interests, Haptic Communication. However, if you don't always trust the big wiki as a reliable source, then the Electronic Journal of Haptics Research might be more up your street.

Labels: haptics, magazine, magazines, print magazines. wikipedia