Next Issue Finally Reaches the Masses. The Masses Are Unsure

Next Issue Media has rolled out their "Hulu+ for Magazines," which they were previously calling their "Netflix for Magazines" on the iPad. I’m not sure what the difference is.

At any rate, you play $10-15 per month and get a lot of digital magazines. This would be a good deal for you, assuming you read a lot of paid magazines. The only people I know who subscribe to this many titles are barbershops, and it’s not like they’re going to be passing an iPad around the waiting room.

But seriously, the fundamental problem with this App is the lack of discoverability. By not sharing revenue with Apple, Next Issue requires you to sign up on their own website to find the app, which means somebody is going to be doing a heck of a lot of marketing. That, plus the fact that I don’t believe that many people really want to spend $120-180/yr on magazine subscriptions leads us to the same conclusion we had a while back: interesting concept, limited success.

If you scroll down to the comments section of this post, it appears there might be some performance issues as well.