Digital Publishing Insights

Texterity's new Coverleaf system was shown for the first time at the Circulation Management conference in Chicago. The feedback from publishers was great, and it's exciting to see a new idea emerging in the magazine industry. The punchline for Coverleaf: "It's like the newsstand, where you can browse, read any page of any magazine, and then decide to buy." (Also, anyone can clip and save pages or collections of pages across magazines -- don't try this at the newsstand!) Coverleaf supports the print subscription model by providing a free "companion" digital copy if you are a print subscriber. The publisher gets a good, valid email address that is directly integrated into the fulfillment system, while the reader gets full digital access.

Time Inc also presented Maghound, slated for release in September 2008. The punchline for Maghound: "Netflix for magazines". It's an interesting and novel business model for magazines. One challenge for Maghound is that a current Time Inc publisher who is trying to "renew" a current subscriber has negative incentives to switch that reader to Maghound. Also, the real Netflix model relies on nearly "instant gratification" -- you get your movies in a few days, versus a few weeks (many weeks?) with Maghound...

Both Magound and Coverleaf are breaking new ground. Both have different approaches, but are working to build a community of interest around magazines, expand the reader base, and make the process easier for a reader to try something new.

Labels: Coverleaf, Maghound