The latest issue of iPad men's mag Project is free, pointing the way for publications targeted at the Apple iPad and iPad 2. American Express is footing the bill with advertising for Richard Branson's lifestyle rag, hoping you never leave home without it -- but are iPad magazines actually worth getting excited about?
The free issue features Aussie actor Eric Bana, and probably some other stuff, but we haven't read it yet because it's been downloading for an hour.
Project launched in November last year with a slightly awkward combination of multimedia elements, including photography, video, and audio clips. It initially cost £1.79.
Daily deal
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has also launched an iPad publication, the big-money newspaper The Daily. The Daily will be available in the UK by summer, although it seems it will just be the US version rather than a version full of British news. The Daily is free to tempt readers, but will shortly start charging 60p per week.
We like the sound of advertising deals, as opposed to us paying for each issue. Not only do we get the mag for free, there's an incentive for publishers to look for such deals as it means they don't have to fork over 30 per cent of their monies to Apple in iTunes subscription fees.
Other similar deals include the FT and International Herald Tribune apps being sponsored by Hublot and Cartier -- like American Express, premium brands looking to target suave, sophisticated iPad owners.
iPad magazines: what are they good for?
Still -- and maybe we're biased -- we're not sold on the concept of magazines designed for tablets. They're great for publishers but offer nothing you couldn't get from a website like this one 'ere -- not only do we have all the digital elements like video and photography, we update constantly, so you're never left behind by the news.
The thing about printed magazines is that each issue is a little walled garden: you buy your copy of GQ, Heat, Kerrang!, New Scientist or Official Meeting Facilities Guide and you're confined to that one magazine. All the adverts -- which really fund the publication, not your cover price -- pass in front of your eyes, even if you're only flipping past them.
But with the Web, it's like every magazine in the shop has been laid out in front of you -- for free -- and you can leap between them with gay abandon, leaving publishers with no guarantee that you'll see the adverts that pay their wages. iPad magazines are an attempt to impose the old model, confining you to one publication, on the digital age. We can't help seeing it as a blind alley.
Still, the photos look nice, and free is free. Are you won over by iPad magazines? What do you read on your tablet? Tell us your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook wall.
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Comments 2
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Anonymous 18 March, 2011 20:42
As a person who's done a print magazine, then migrated the publication to the web when the cost of printing became too prohibitive, to now also a publisher of two iPad magazines I think I know a little something about this subject.
Any magazine whether print or tablet based that's trying to push the "latest news" should know that's a losing battle although articles and news can be pushed to tablet platforms. What we do different with our magazine is try to bring back journalism. I'm sorry but most articles on the majority of web sites are written by bloggers, and while sometimes informative... you don't generally read an article on a website and say "damn, that was a really good article". We do have a few bloggers writing for us and a lot of them seem to resent the fact that, yes.. their work will be EDITED. They find it hard to come to grasp with the fact. That's one area where I think traditional publications still have an advantage.
Magazines still feel more intimate than websites and studies have shown that people spend more time reading both traditional and tablet based mags than they do websites. The reading habits are just different and so are their views towards the advertising. Where as most tend to ignore the banners placed on sites (such as yours)... readers engage in the multimedia based tablet advertising much more.
Clearly your bias is toward the web but when a tablet magazine is done correctly... it can be quite compelling.
anonymous 21 March, 2011 15:32
We're definitely coming at this from different directions. The Internet is "sometimes informative"? Bit of an understatement, surely.