The Future Of Magazines

The magazine industry is going through a massive transition period, which is seeing new developments and new mediums taking the lead from the traditional print format. With the ever increasing popularity of portable devices such as the iPad, iPhone and new android based smart phones; people are reconfiguring the way in which they access information. People are now looking for quick and convenient ways to replace tasks that involve time and effort, leading to an increase in the use of digital services.

Within the publishing world, digital magazines have existed in a basic form for years, although until recently there has been neither the medium nor demand to warrant investing in this technology. Over the last few years various companies have attempted to push digital magazines into the mainstream and many of these failed or withdrew their attempts due to lack of demand. More recently Zinio, a leading player in the digital magazine world has managed to successfully integrate the digital magazine format into the mainstream and now boasts partnerships with many big name sites such as Barnes and Noble in the states. Readers are becoming more and more receptive to the digital format and the benefits it brings such as instant access and much lower prices. Many publishing companies are now offering digital versions of theirs titles and some have launched digital only titles such as Monkey or Photo 360.

With the ever increasing acceptance of the format, publishers are beginning to enter the market with digital versions of their magazines either through portals such as Zinio or Digital Magazine Deals. The costs of producing digital magazines are minimal compared to their print counterparts and the advertising opportunities unlocked within the digital format means that publishers can easily achieve considerably higher profit margins than within the print industry. The question now is how long will it be before the digital magazine format becomes the standard delivery medium for the majority of our magazines.

Think back to the days of music cassettes or VHS videos, there was a time when they were THE medium for their respective markets, yet now hardly anyone produces anything in these formats and the sales are marginal at best. These formats were phased out due to the release of new advanced formats that offered better quality and more features. Digital magazines offer exactly this, a format that can include advanced multimedia features and more pages at very little additional cost. Surely it is only a matter of time until consumers start to expect these benefits rather see them as an extra. When this time comes, any publishers who have clung onto their print format titles and refused to embrace the next phase in the magazine industry will be playing catch up in a big way.