Tuesday, January 27, 2009

another digital model: $19.95

Portfolio.com reports that U.S. News & World Report is launching a digital newsweekly. U.S. News Weekly will pop into your inbox in pdf form each week for an annual subcription price of $19.95. what you download will be a page-by-page digital magazine in terms of layout, photos and copy, complete with cover and TOC.

Might this be a model that could help bail out the j. biz?

From the Portfolio article:
"A one-year subscription will cost $19.95 (although subscribers to U.S. News & World Report will be able to download it for free). 'This is what every editor's trying to figure out right now -- how can I pay my reporters to do reporting?' says [editor Brian] Kelly. 'You've got to figure out a way where, on some level, the consumer is going to pay for some type of content." ...

"The upside for the readers, he notes, is that they're only paying for content -- and not for the expense of shipping and printing. And because there's no need to budget time for those processes, U.S. News Weekly will have near-instantaneous turnaround: The magazine will close on Thursday night and be made available at noon on Friday."

1 comment:

Cacooze said...

Interesting... a digital copy would save some money that would otherwise be spent on printing. I guess it makes sense, if you like reading a computer.