With the popularity of eBook readers gathering pace, and more competition appearing for Amazon’s Kindle range, publishers are having to react and decide whether they want publications to appear in digital form and by what means. Time Inc. is one of the first to react in a bold way and take matters into its own hands with the news of a digital magazine service.

Rather than use existing digital distribution methods, such as selling through Amazon, Time has decided it would be better off setting up and controlling digital versions of magazines itself. With that in mind the company is planning the equivalent of a digital newsstand for introduction next year. Users would be able to visit this site and gain access to their favorite publications either by purchasing a single copy or signing up for a subscription much like they do for print magazines today. Those digital versions would then be available to download to a reading device of choice.

By introducing such a service Time maximizes its revenue as there is no middleman e-tailer taking a cut and the company also manages to maintain its current business model with magazines through subscriptions, but without the cost of printing and benefiting from a lower cost distribution method.

With 22 magazines currently published across the U.S. Time has the breadth of content to make this work; and it is actively pursuing other publishers to come on board paving the way for a one-stop digital shop for all your magazine needs. The advantage Time is offering publishers over other digital solutions will be the ability for those publishers to deal directly with consumers and not have to pay a third party for handling sales.

Read more at Reuters.com

Matthew’s Opinion

Publishers are slowly waking up to the fact that their content generates the most revenue for them when it is handled by them alone in digital form. The music companies realized this too late and now deal with the large music stores such as iTunes, 7digital, Napster and Amazon, all of whom take a cut of the profits. When it comes to magazines and newspapers though, the market for digital editions is still very young and no one has really established itself as the go to place for getting content. Amazon is trying hard, but hasn’t achieved that yet mainly because a lot of written content just isn’t readily available yet in digital form.

Time’s idea of going it alone does maximize profits and if it gets other publishers on board could be a big success. It has to get the pricing right and make distribution simple, but as digital readers become more common digital magazines will become more desirable for users. If Time can get this service rolled out early next year it can catch the wave and potentially become a leader in the field of digital magazine distribution. There’s nothing to say that then won’t expand to newspapers and books.

There are a few developments that need to happen for digital magazines to be a success and they all come in the form of better devices for accessing content. The most obvious feature is a color display to allow for the viewing of the content as it is seen in printed magazines. Also video and audio playback would be desirable allowing for better advertising to appear, but also for magazines covering subjects like games or films it would mean the inclusion of trailers is possible and other more web-friendly content.