apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Very intriguing! While there are some magazines I NEED to physically own (and oh the joy of a stuffed mailbox when I get home) this service sounds like a valuable alternative for those publications of which I am less covetous.

As always, AT, thanks for the great tip.

Considering my magazine obsession... I'll suscribe. I'll let you know how it is.
Thanks for the great link.

Although I don't have any personal experience with Zinio, I agree that it's a great concept.

However, I'm not sure that it will catch on with all magazines. Few publishing companies own all the photos appearing in their magazines. Instead, publishers license the right to use photos in their magazines (so-called "print rights"). In order to use Zinio's service, publishers would have to pay more money for the right to use photos on the internet (so-called "digital rights"). So, until there are enough people buying magazines through Zinio (or a similar service), few publishers are going to incur the added cost of obtaining digital rights.

I get Elle Decor and Met Home with Zinio, and I love it! You can install the reader on two computers, so I have it at home and at work, and you get multiple downloads on each issue.

There are links to sites for pretty much everything in the magazine, and the cover headlines link to the articles inside. The post-it feature is very handy as well. I get an email every time an issue is ready for download, but there is an automatic download feature--the zinio reader will check periodically if you have an issue ready to download. There is also a feature that allows you to share issues with a certain number of people--I have not had any experience with this yet though.

To top it all off, the digital subscriptions were much less expensive than the print subscriptions, and it is turning out to be a great choice! I would definitely recommend trying it out.

Actually, publishers are not required to obtain digital rights from photographers for Zinio because it is a subscription service and therefore considered to be the same as sending the paper magazine to a traditional magazine subscriber. If images were used on their website (considered a seperate publishing event) then they would need to purchase digital rights.

Approving magazine pages for Zinio is part of my job so I just had to get that off my chest! You are right though that there are not a great deal of benefits for publishers in providing Zinio subscriptions, since magazines make the least amount of money from subscriptions (the stands and ads bring in far more).

PLUS there's a fun and quick game on thier site i've been playing lately..

find the 10 differences between the 2 magazine covers!

www.ziniomatch.com

BUT paper and postage are increasing in cost all the time...

coming from a total magzine hoarder who just got made fun of for moving boxes of magazines from old home into new home (don't they understand, i already did throw out a bunch of them!?) this seems like a great idea.

I must admit, this does seem like a great idea ...I have two or three years' worth of shelter magaines hoarded at the moment. does anyone have any suggestions about a useful purpose to which these could be put?
I'd love to donate them to a worthy cause.

I have to disagree, Laura (murray hill). I don't want to turn this post into a debate about intellectual property, but copyright law does not focus on the intended audience (i.e., magazine subscribers -- whether tangible or electronic). What matters for copyright purposes is the medium (print, television, cable, radio, internet, CD, DVD, etc.) since a license to use copyrighted material in one medium (i.e., print) does not imply a license to use that material in another medium (i.e., internet). Anyway, I'm not going to hijack this post and that's the last I'll say on this subject.

Cool concept! I love, love, love my tangible magazines and wouldn't give it up. But, I gotta admit that when I need to go back to one and find something it's time consuming and impossible. I wish we could have a 'search' option with our physical mag's!

Zinio shipped on my new Mac two years ago. I used it for a little while, then completely lost interest. Anyone know if it's changed much in more recent versions? Does it have a killer feature that would outweigh the joy of turning pages?

I so need the tactile experience of laying in bed and reading a design mag before going to sleep each night. I have tried the online thing, it just isn't the same. No matter how far we go toward advancing technology, there are some things we will always hanker for, and so far, the act of reading print on a physical piece of paper is too important to let go of as a society. More books are sold now than at any time in history.

Great post on Zinio, folks. I actually work for NXTbook Media, which is one of Zinio's competitors.

That being said, we do mostly BtoB titles (though our most popular consumer title is NYLON magazine).

For the most part, publishers choose digital publishing for a few reasons:

* If they can convert a print subscriber to a digital subscriber, they save money. If it's an international subscriber, they can save A LOT of money.

* When we survey print readers and offer them the ability to have a print or digital subscription, enough choose digital for the process to pay for itself (including any digital rights issues that would occur, though most publishers tend to favor Laura's opinion re: this issue).

* Digital editions have the ability to provide tons of rich media content. Since you mentioned Zinio, check out VIVmag, which is one of Zinio's coolest new digital-only titles.

* While Zinio's content is locked up behind a digital rights system, publishers can choose to share permalinks with our system. That way you can save and share bookmarks to great content... we think that'll be very important moving forward.

Great blog, btw!

Marcus

This could be really useful in a couple years when you can load it onto a color e-paper reader (like a better version of the new Sony Reader). I'm not really interested in spending even more time staring at my computer.

Hmmm...at first it seems like an exciting idea, to have my magazines digitized....but then I can't help but think how awkward it would be to have to read them that way all the time! Mind you, I don't buy many magazines anymore. But when I do, it's usually because I want something to laze around and read (stretched out on the couch or something), or because I'm going to be stuck somewhere (like public transit or an airport). I wouldn't want to be chained to a computer or even a laptop just to flip through a magazine. And I wouldn't haul my laptop out on a commuter train, unless I wanted to have it taken from me!

This is a cool idea that will work for some people.

As for me, I'm with the tactile camp.

Devyn:
I just looked at your website. It is fabulous. I grew up in downtown Chicago.

I think DavidO is right about the copyright thing - I work in publishing and in the past I remember us having to ask for permission twice - once to use images in print and once to use them on our website
I think its all to do with distribution - it would be a lot of work for a subscriber to reproduce a paper page and distribute it widely to their friends but with a few clicks of a mouse they could be sending digital images all over the world...

Anyway...

I kind of like this idea - I currently cut out all the best bits of magazines that I liek and paste them into scrapbooks (I have a huge pile - divided into fashion and interiors) and then throw the rest of the paper magazine away. If I had it digitally it would stop me having to worry about which side of a page I wanted to keep - i ould print off both sides!

Zinio is wonderful as I am in Asia.
Now I can view the magazine as soon as published.

Lots of free zinio magazines:
http://asiaing.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=8&Itemid=71
Enjoy it.