Moving from physical print to digital for your magazines/newspapers etc.

[Jon]

Has anyone made the move 100% yet?

I am toying with the idea as my subscription to Empire magazine comes around. It it is about half the price if I take a digital subscription on my iPad compared to a regular 'through the letterbox'.

I have trialed an edition for free on the iPad and it is FAR more interactive than I thought. Stories lead through to video clips about movies, adverts are interactive, as are quizzes and a lot of other bits and bobs. The photos also seem to be of far better quality.

I have also looked at newspapers as well such as Metro (which I currently get each day on the iPad as it is free). Again the newspaper is interactive in lots of parts and the latest edition each morning just gets automatically pushed to my iPad around 6am, I don't even need to do anything.

I can see a BIG market there for the 'old folk' who don't want to go out in the rain each day to pick up the local rag and instead it just gets send to them electronically.

However, my girlfriend, she loves her gossip mags. Heat/Reveal/Closer etc... She reads them in the bath, she won't be doing that with my iPad so I can already see one problem with the digital versions which is that people treat the physical ones as quite disposable in terms of where they read their newspaper or magazines..

Just interested if anyone has decided to make the the switch to digital only (or half digital maybe) and how they found it.

 

[stellajose]

No, I haven't. But... I don't really buy magazines any more except for freebie make up or for travelling. And I prefer print editions for that too, like your girlfriend.

The thing with interactive magazines - they just wouldn't hold my interest. The way I look at things online is with lots of tabs open, flitting about from one thing to another. Only rarely would I read lots of pages from the same site, iyswim.

 

[Andreiacoentrao]

I too always used to read my mags in the bath, then got gifted a waterproof phone - problem solved!

 

[alditoharrods]

I spend so much time in front of a screen for work, money making, blogging and for recreation (games, videos) so I really treasure having an actual print copy of something. It is why I don't use my Kindle Fire HD tablet as a Kindle too.

 

[tocku]

I spend so much time in front of a screen for work, money making, blogging and for recreation (games, videos) so I really treasure having an actual print copy of something.

Ditto. I think it depends on context though: Jon's case of Empire magazine with movie trailers augmented into the reading experience makes a lot of sense.

I find that I absorb information a lot better if I'm reading a physical copy. I'm not quite the Luddite, but this clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer has something in it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_M108B3mdY

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

I'm almost 100% digital when it comes to magazines and newspapers. Can't justify the expense with newspapers now especially. Used to buy the Guardian everyday, now I just read what I want from it online as well as stories from the Telegraph, Mirror, Independent and even the Mail.£1.60 per day (£2.50 I think on a Saturday) really adds up.

 

[Jon]

another major advantage (at least on the Apple eco system) is I can buy say a £25 itunes card for £18/£19 online

then go and subscribe to a digital version of a magazine through the app store at an even more reduced price as I have already saved money on my payment method before I have even bought the subscription