The Future of Digital Magazine Media
The future of magazine publishing is based on transition to a digital magazine content presentation format people actually use.
In 2019, the majority of our audiences are using mobile devices to read our issues! This percentage is growing no matter how much we (as publishers) still envision our audience grabbing our print edition to read during lunch.
We are a digital media society and everyday we hear news of digital advancement or learn that another publisher has failed to adapt their brand digitally. We know that the print medium will soon become the secondary delivery channel for the modern magazine brand and yet it’s hard for many publishers to imagine the print business model online.
The definition of a magazine is itself a value based to consumers. The word MAGAZINE connotates it’s quality content deliverable, ‘THE ISSUE.”
The future of magazine publishing is based on transition to a digital magazine content presentation format people actually use.
David Blankenship
Magazine Publishing Innovation
As innovative publishers, we leveraged the printed magazine perception stereotype as we moved online 10 years ago in the form of a digital edition flip book. All the time we knew this horizontal 2-page digital magazine edition format didn’t really fit the medium. But it was the only format we could imagine that kept readers understanding that this is the magazine and not a web article. And while magazine apps native to the device platform improved upon this experience, the typical industry publication (and most consumer titles) are still not a apps on the target audience readers tablet or phone. Magazine issue apps just don’t work for niche and trade publications.
Mobile Magazine Readership User Experience
Defined by extensive UX testing and existing online web content leadership we know that modern UX for mobile user content experience is a feed or scroll based format. Content must be responsive so that users on any mobile device will view an intended presentation of content. And, this is the great design problem solved by the “DESIGNED” vertical magazine edition. This is differentiated from the mosaic, tiled, newsfeed content that programmatically drops individual sets of stories of content into a feed aggregator. Vertical editions are different because the publisher controls the entire issue content organization and design experience in the same way they control layout and design for their print editions.
Vertical magazines transition and optimize content into a responsively designed linear experience driven by the same style and experience principals that made the print reading experience impressive for the audience. The vertical orientation of an issue that’s been completely redesigned for the mobile user experience keeps the user engaged with the entire stream of content and not working for every page flip. The magazine digital brand is expanding around the publication website and the heart of the magazine is still the periodic deliverable to the audience in the form of “The Issue.”
“Every Issue Matters – Get VERTIQUL“