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Magazine Publishers Teaming Up for Digital Publishing

The New York Observer reports that a number of major magazine publishers are nearing an agreement to launch a joint venture that would be focused on digital distribution of their content, aiming to create a digital storefront similar to Apple's iTunes Store.

The company would make up one of the biggest alliances among rival publishers ever formed in print media, with Time Inc., Cond Nast and Hearst all expected to join, houses that together publish more than 50 magazines, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Esquire and O, The Oprah Magazine.

A report from early last month noted that such a plan for an industry-wide digital storefront was in the works in order to prepare for the probable launch of Apple's much-rumored tablet device in the relatively near future. Today's report, however, goes beyond the previous claims, pointing to the creation of a separate company headed by John Squires, an executive vice president at Time, to manage the distribution of digital content for a wide array of devices, as well as offering standard print media.

The company will prepare magazines that can work across multiple digital platforms, whether the iPhone, the BlackBerry or countless other digital devices. The company will not develop an e-book, but create something that people familiar with the plans compare to iTunes -- a store where you can buy new and distinct iterations of The New Yorker or Time. Print magazines will also be for sale.

A deal has not yet been finalized, but an announcement may be made "within weeks" and may include additional publishers beyond Time, Cond Nast and Hearst.

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29 months ago
At least they learned from the mistakes the music industry made.
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29 months ago
I was wondering what was taking the magazine business so long to jump on the digital bandwagon. Sure you can go to their sites and read some of the articles but a full on magazine via the web. This could be interesting. Especially if they are all in one location!

What would be cool is if they could be linked via itunes and have the delivered to your computer etc.... Just an idea. Of course if they have some other way of doing it with their third party software that would be nice too.
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29 months ago
Guess apple got beat to it this time. There loss. They need to get on the ball with their tablet and whatnot.
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29 months ago
This is the sort of thing that the movie and tv industries should have done after seeing iTunes dominate music.

I like the sound of this idea, I'm very likely to choose the Apple tablet as my eReader but it will be good if I can go to a store front like this to get content that works with other devices.
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29 months ago
I can't help but feel a bit cynical about the attempt of these publishers pulling off a "store" that truly feels integrated with a number of devices. I am open to a standardized format, but for an Apple device, it would just feel more natural to purchase via a built in "store." Perhaps several modes of distribution of the same content will be available, but that's not what it sounds like they're going for. I'm imagining some type of web based "store."
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29 months ago

Guess apple got beat to it this time. There loss. They need to get on the ball with their tablet and whatnot.


Who to say this isn't in response to rumors of an apple/pc tablet. Getting together before hand, when the product hits you are already on board and have all of your ducks in a row!
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29 months ago
The next industry to be revolutionized in the way of distribution. No surprise every content producing industry will need to adept to new ways of distribution and find business models to still earn money from it. I am concerned about quality content though, quality journalism for example, I hope it won't go down...
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29 months ago
Well whoever is first past the post, I can't wait.
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29 months ago
One way to get rid of employees

Promote them to the Apple tablet, content division.
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29 months ago

The next industry to be revolutionized in the way of distribution. No surprise every content producing industry will need to adept to new ways of distribution and find business models to still earn money from it. I am concerned about quality content though, quality journalism for example, I hope it won't go down...


I don't think the quality of the journalism will go down. They will just be writing for a new format. Nothing really on their end should change.
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