Convergence: Magazines Confront the Digital Age

Although the Internet was initially viewed as the death knell of print magazines, the industry now embraces it. The Internet has become the place where print magazines like Time and Entertainment Weekly can extend their reach, where some magazines like FHM and Elle Girl can survive when their print version ends, or where online magazines like Salon, Slate, and Wonderwall can exist exclusively.

Magazines Move Online

Given the costs of paper, printing, and postage, creating magazine companion Web sites is a popular method for expanding the reach of consumer magazines. For example, Wired magazine has a print circulation of about 830,000. Online, Wired.com gets an average of 19 million unique visitors per month. Mobile magazine apps have become even more popular. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of U.S. consumer magazine iPad apps grew from 98 to 1,159.8

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WONDERWALL, launched in 2009 by MSN.com and media production company BermanBraun, is now a leading Internet entertainment magazine, with more than ten million unique visitors per month. The site has spawned three online spin-offs–Wonderwall Latino; BTLWY, a “powerwall” site of political celebrities that BermanBraun co-produces with MSNBC; and Glo, a style and beauty magazine produced with major magazine publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media.
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The Web and app formats give magazines unlimited space, which is at a premium in their printed versions, and the opportunity to do things that print can’t do. Many online magazines now include blogs, original video and audio podcasts, social networks, games, virtual fitting rooms, and 3-D “augmented reality” (or AR) components that could never work in print. For example, PopularMechanics.com has added interactive 3-D models for do-it-yourself projects, so that a reader can go over plans to make an Adirondack chair, examining joints and parts from every angle. GQ.com has featured 3-D athletes in Calvin Klein underwear, and automotive magazines are using AR to bring car models to life. Additionally, 12 percent of the Top 100 magazines now offer mobile-specific scanning apps (including Lucky, Seventeen, GQ, Teen Vogue, Brides, Popular Science, and Maxim) that allow every page, not just those with a QR code (the square scannable bar codes that link to video and Web pages), 3-D involvement. While QR codes are still a primary part of the mobile activation experience, they are more associated with promotions and coupons, while augmented reality is a vehicle for a stronger branding experience.

Paperless: Magazines Embrace Digital Content

Webzines such as Salon and Slate, which are magazines that appear exclusively online, were pioneers in making the Web a legitimate site for breaking news and discussing culture and politics. Salon was founded in 1995 by five former reporters from the San Francisco Examiner who wanted to break from the traditions of newspaper publishing and build “a different kind of newsroom” to create well-developed stories and commentary. With the help of positive word-of-mouth comments, Salon is now the leading online magazine, claiming 15 million unique monthly visitors in 2013. Its main online competitor, Slate, founded in 1996 and now owned by the Washington Post Company, draws about 15.8 million unique monthly visitors.

Other online-only magazines have tried to reinvent the idea of a magazine, instead of just adapting the print product to the Web. For example, MSN’s Wonderwall (wonderwall.msn.com) uses a layout that is only possible in a digital magazine. Visitors are met by a vertical “wall” of more than sixty celebrity photographs, each linking to a story. Lonny (www.lonnymag.com), an interior design magazine, enables readers to flip through digital pages and then click through on items (such as pillows, chairs, fabrics) for purchase. As magazines create apps for smartphones and touchscreen tablets, editorial content is even more tightly woven with advertising. Readers can now, for example, read Entertainment Weekly’s top music recommendations on their iPhone or iPad and then click through to buy a song or album on iTunes. Entertainment Weekly, owned by Time Warner, then gets a cut of the sale it generated for iTunes, and the reader gets music almost instantly. (See “Tracking Technology: The New ‘Touch’ of Magazines”.)