Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

OK, that headline is really pushing it. Nevertheless, the MPA had the foresight to host a panel earlier this week called Digital Magazines in the Media Mix. This event was attended by several publishing professionals who sat in on a panel which included myself, Nxtbook customer Todd Christenson from Hearst, as well as representatives from Zinio (and Science Magazine - a Zinio client) and a rep. from Texterity.

Because the consumer market tends to be more fickle about digital magazines than B-to-B, my presentation focused on the success of custom publications and how consumer brands could use custom digital magazines to satisfy readers and forward-thinking customers. This was why we also brought in Todd, whose hugely successful Project Analog has been joined by another success: Project Lighting. I also spoke about some data contained in the recent Gilbane study about the success of digital magazines.

I enjoyed Jeanniey Mullen’s presentation for Zinio, which addressed the role of the consumer in all of this and led to some fairly healthy debate.

Darryl Walter spoke on behalf of Science Digital. Darryl’s been using Zinio for quite a few years and while I don’t think attendees came away thinking a digital magazine has radically altered their business, I came away feeling that they considered it to be an integral part of the mix.

Martin Hensel’s presentation from Texterity called into question the ability for publishers to make money selling only digital subs (preferring companion subs), but pointed out other benefits of going digital, as well.

All in all, it was an enjoyable time. Last week, the Gilbane study helped publishers to realize that more and more pubs (more than 3000!) have a digital edition and that they are being enjoyed by more than 13,000,000 readers. Now, the MPA has seen fit to see what all of the fuss is about. Could ABM recognition be far behind?