Have Digital Magazines Lost Their Shine?

That’s the message from one UK publisher who’s stopped doing a digital magazine:

Digital surfing magazine Drift has decided to switch to a printed format – and its editor has said …."I think digital magazines have had their day. As a medium to put features in, they don’t work.”

Drift rang a bell with me and – sure enough – two years ago, our then-reseller in the UK did their first issue. Subsequent issues, however, were done with another product. A product without search engine indexing and page-specific permalinks, which would’ve come in quite handy with content as viral as surfing.

Moreover – being a paid title – the publisher could’ve used Nxt Pass – allowing people to see small portions of protected content before being asked to pay.

More and more – saying digital magazines "don’t work" is kind of like saying a particular pair of pliers doesn’t work. In most cases the real question is which type of pliers you should be using for the job you’re trying to complete. The right tool used the right way will generally yield the right results. Conversely, if you try to use pliers to turn in a screw, you generally end up frustrated with the results.

As March passes into the rear view mirror, we saw another month with more than 1 million digital edition readers and one of our best revenue months ever. On the contrary, our days have just begun.