Will downloadable versions of print ever catch on?

Since the turn of this century I have been watching a range of companies try to launch digital magazine solutions. Zinio, Newsstand, Texterity, Olive Software, to name a few, have come up with some very attractive ways of letting us view digitzed versions of print products either in downloadable formats or in a Web browser. Many of them have lovely animated pages, embedded multimedia, and even a crinkly sound to mimic the turning page. 

This season we will see some of these companies make another stab at a category that has been slow to grow. Olive releases a new version of its platform that relies more on XML, and Zinio is slated to release a new prodcut by year’s end. At the same time I hear more positive feedback from a handful of publishers about a model that many ignored or dismissed over the years. Some trade publishers in particular are realizing up to 10% of their controlled circulation base using the digital editions. For publishers who are getting no direct subscription income from readers, this is a solid cost savings, and for international distribution going digital is even more efficicent. Zinio recently told me that up to half of downloads are coming from overseas. And a new consultancy for magazines, mediaIDEAS just issued a brief arguing that publishers should be experimenting now with a digital format that will inevitably be critical to their futures.

Well, I don’t know about that. Digi-mags have been in a state of becoming for five years now. The look and feel of digital verisons of print is appealing to many users once or twice, but generally even the cheerleading enthusiasts at mediaIDEAS admit that the model is not there yet. Magazine publishers seem to be more in love with the idea of preserving their print layouts with digital flexibility more than readers are. Still if we ever see e-paper take off as a medium and touch screen handhelds become more widespread, then it is possible that finally, after years of trying, digital magazines will have a place under the arms of commuters and travelers.

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