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Loaded magazines

When the internet arrived I was gobsmacked. It seemed to me to be what we had all been waiting for. Like the guy in Fight Club said "it was on the tip of everybody's tongue and now it had a name". I bought into the idea that the internet changes everything. So smitten was I that I sold my stake in BrandWorld, the business I started in 1996 with William Peake and Greig Buckley, Bill ended up with ownership of the business and the Family Health Diary product I created became a multi-million dollar success - the biggest advertising brand on New Zealand TV. I may have backed the wrong horse in the short term but I am convinced that the end game will belong to the web and TV reliant advertising services will become as irrelevant as the products promoted. Relevance will be the key. It has made Google a mammoth brand in very short order - I think it launched in 1998 - and has become so ingrained in our culture that the proper noun has become a verb. Have you googled someone or something?

However, I want to talk about digitally distributed magazines, not the web specifically. I have fallen for the reader. It is software that you download to your computer, then subscribe to various mainstream and niche magazines.The magazine is downloaded to your computer and you read it on screen or print the pages you want.
You are automatically notified when there is a new edition. The aesthetic is modeled on a magazine, page turns etc. Like a magazine it is non-linear - you can flip through to the section you want. Unlike a magazine you can view interactive material - from an advertiser's video to a demonstration of how to perform a yoga move safely.

Zinio is brilliant. get it and play with it. See how you ideas change about using media. I have just read VIV, a women's magazine that is the first specifically designed for the digital format-there is no print edition.

Having developed a magazine (Idealog) I understand the difficulties, in spite of that I am going to develop a digital magazine for a niche audience. There will be no issues (if you'll pardon the pun) with economies of scale - printing on paper is very expensive (as is distributing it). Of course content becomes the mopst significant investment and convincing advertisers that a new approach will succeed is another.

But, if all else fails, at least the carbon footprint will be small.

If you are interest in exploring this and getting involved send me an email

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