Magazine trend is selling digital editions on magazine-branded storefronts

The majority of magazine publishers, at least in the U.S., are choosing to create their own magazine-branded storefronts and apps to sell digital editions, according to a lengthy roundup by Folio: magazine. This is as opposed to a collaborative approach with magazine marketplaces (such as the Digital Newsstand operated for its members by Magazines Canada in conjunction with Zinio).

Tulsa, Oklahoma-based iMirus, for example, has been building microsites directly onto its clients’ Web sites where all of the digital subscription transactions take place. “The microsite allows us to strengthen the Pharmacy Today brand and it makes us more searchable,” says Bill Succolosky, senior director, creative services,  associate publisher, American Pharmacists Association.  “It connects our readers back to our homepage and also allows us the opportunity to sell ads online, which supplements our print edition.”

Digital newsstand providers are moving in the directionof providing magazine-branded bundles, rather than newsstands with their own names on them.

“There’s no inherent reason why readers should care about digital-distribution companies any more than they do about the ones that deliver print magazines to newsstands, [says Harry McCracken, the founder of Technologizer].”

According to the article, various kinds of tablets, including the iPad, could be a boon for magazines. 

“If companies like Zinio, Nxtbook and Texterity play their cards right, e-readers should be the best things that ever happened to them,” says McCracken. “They already have well-established publisher relationships and technologies, and far more people are going to want to read magazine-format publications on tablet-style devices than ever wanted to on PCs.”