Preview of Next Issue Media digital newsstand for U.S. titles now online

A consortium of five major U.S. magazine publishers who formed Next Issue Media in 2009 have finally unveiled their "digital newsstand". According to a story in MediaDailyNews, a preview is available exclusively on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.0, but will be introduced as a standalone app later this year.

Next Issue Media was formed by Conde Nast, Hearst Corp., Meredith, News Corp., and Time Inc. with the goal of creating a shared digital newsstand to scale up digital content consumption. So far, the preview gives  access to a handful of titles  including Fitness, Esquire, Popular Mechanics, The New Yorker, Time, Parents and Fortune.

Visitors to the web site can sign up to receive email alerts telling them when magazines' digital issues are added to the list.

A story on Wired  says

Limited though it may be, the Next Issue preview is still noteworthy because it demonstrates that the big publishers can work together toward a vision that many in the industry view as the digital endgame: a virtual newsstand where readers can pick and choose among titles, just as they might if they were browsing at Hudson News while waiting for the subway.

“Our aim has always been to get our magazines in front of consumers wherever they might be,” Condé Nast president Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr. wrote in an internal memo Wednesday. “The same holds true for our digital editions and apps, and Next Issue is another step forward in realizing that ambition.”

 On Monday, Conde Nast began digital subscriptions via Apple's iTunes store to four more titles (The New Yorker digital edition was launched on iTunes last week and became one of its top grossing apps.) The titles are Vanity Fair, Glamour, Golf Digest and Allure. The digital subs are $19.99 a year and current print subscribers get the digital editions for free.