To launch a successful Ad Supported Digital Magazine (ASDM) you need to deploy a design or content strategy to overcome the two physical digital magazine annoyance factors; having to zoom in and out to read pages, and pages that don't always turn when you want them to.
One content strategy is to tighten editorial focus to appeal to a smaller, possibly under served, but more motivated group of readers. With a more motivated audience these annoyances become minor and the dramatically lower costs of digital delivery make the business model work even with a smaller circulation.
That seems to be part of the strategy behind "US Newsweekly" which soft launched back in January as the digital only reincarnation of the former weekly news magazine "US News and World Report."
According to a post on Jeff Bercovici's Portfolio blog based on an interview with Kelly:
"Whereas the parent title has gravitated toward advertiser-friendly topics like health and education, the digital weekly will be "very Washington-centric, "says Kelly, with a tighter focus on politics and policy. Since there's less ad support for that type of content, U.S. News Weekly will be a premium product: A one-year subscription will cost $19.95. "This is what every editor's trying to figure out right now -- how can I pay my reporters to do reporting?" says Kelly. "You've got to figure out a way where, on some level, the consumer is going to pay for some type of content."
We wish Brian Kelly and his pioneering group good luck. If successful, this launch could lead to greater acceptance of digital magazines created to attract their own audience, not just digital replicas of print magazines.
Video: see editor Brian Kelly explain his new digital magazine
Josh, this is a great example of what we call a "designed for digital" magazine.
We have just put out a guide for publishers on how best to deploy these called "Designing for Digital Made Easy".
You can read it at http://info.texterity.com/info/digitaldesign/ -- there is no registration required.
Posted by: Cimarron Buser | March 25, 2009 at 02:10 PM
I also wish you good luck!! Keep up the good work!
-urieqo-
Posted by: Letters to the Philippines | April 08, 2009 at 01:12 AM
Josh,
I applaud your efforts in bringing a dose of reality to the digital edition space and speaking out on how they need to be to become successful. I would also say they need to take a two-pronged approach in terms of marketing the DE to get it in front of many more potential readers. That is the whole reason we created the Mygazines Newsstand which takes the newsstand premise, extends it to all digital editions regardless of the provider and wraps Web 2.0 features such as commenting and social bookmarking around the pubs.
It's only a matter of finding the sweetspot before digital editions truly take off as it makes such economic sense.
Posted by: Pierre Bisaillon | April 16, 2009 at 05:10 PM
Good luck to them.Just hoping they can launched the magazine successfully.
-Stephanie
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