Today in TechNow Available: All-you-can-read digital magazine service
Sitting in the doctor's waiting room is no fun, but if there's one redeeming quality to it, its the plethora of magazines available for you to read. People love being able to flip through magazines casually, which is why magazine publisher Next Issue's venture seems promising: It's just launched a Hulu-like subscription service for magazines. And the best part is that unlike at the doctor's office, these issues won't be six months old and dog eared.
The all-you-can-read service will start out by offering 27 different monthly titles, most of which are big names like Better Homes and Gardens, Elle, Esquire, Fortune, and Vanity Fair. That service will cost you $9.99 a month, or you can get premium access for $14.99. The higher price point offers you five extra weekly titles: Entertainment Weekly, People, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, and Time. More magazine titles will be added after launch, and Next Issue is negotiating bringing other publishers into the service.
The service has a major drawback: Right now, it's only available to Android users running the Honeycomb operating system. Next Issue is currently working to get the service up and running on the iPad, but Apple approval will take time — probably later this summer.
The company hopes the move will shake up the current digital model, where customers can buy digital subscriptions to individual magazines (or get a digital subscription alongside their print subscription for free). Those à la carte subscriptions are selling, but not at a level to save the struggling print media industry.
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
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