Magazine people are a creative bunch. They know it’s all about quality content and they’re getting better at taking advantage of new ways to get that content to their audience.
So here are three reason to be cheerful:
1 People still want magazine articles – and they’ll pay to get them
Last week an article from Fortune magazine, Inside Apple, made the Top 10 list of paid Kindle bestsellers. It had already appeared in the magazine and was in the magazine’s iPad app too.
2 People will spend time with content
The people who are making iPad apps report that readers spend an average of 30-34 minutes with an app.
3 New titles are entering the market
In the UK, Future Publishing launched iCAR just last week. And one observer in the US said he counted 188 consumer magazine launches in the first quarter of 2011.
Not so bad!
Re: #2 (time spent using apps), is there any data on how long an average print magazine reading session lasts, for the sake of comparison? And does the 30-34 minute time frame including downloading time? If downloading is in fact included, then I’d say the stats aren’t quite as rosy as portrayed. Download time is one of the more common and significant complaints about digital magazines (and one I’ve personally dealt with), so it’s potentially a big factor in both usage data and outlook for magazine apps. Print mags, as always, are good to go the moment you open them up.
The 30-34 minute time frame can’t include downloads. As you rightly point out, the length of time it takes to get your mag on a tablet has been a big shock to users!