I like the digital magazine newsstand specials I receive from Zinio.  In addition to a brilliant digital issue feature in their magazine newsstand app, I receive good value magazine subscription deals each week.

The iPad magazine newsstand app (see more magazine apps) provides an Explore and Featured tab to view the latest featured magazine covers and feature story spreads.

The iPad magazine app contains 29 featured issues which exposes iPad readers to plenty of new magazines each month in addition to the complete magazine newsstand shop tab and category options for viewing new titles.

Zinio is also looking forward to the interest of interactive magazines.  Here’s a video with Zinio’s CEO speaking to their direction.

Find more “beyond reading” magazine editions by Zinio.  Nice job!

Digital magazine apps and editions will evolve rapidly.  We expect new features and sharing capabilities as well as some healthy competition from the digital platforms.  Share is the essence of circulation and viral growth of any brand, and most especially magazines.  If a magazine, book, blog, news site does not have something worth sharing it may also lack content worth bookmarking or saving, or even reading.

Paid content walls and barriers to sharing provide short term revenue and long term brand destruction costs as a strategy for most publishers.  It does take a lesson or two on the value of both viral marketing and cost of traffic to understand that the reader is valuable, especially for the advertising driven publication.  And don’t we want advertisers to fund the magazine?

For both consumer and trade magazines I find the advertising of equal value to the content. Magazine apps can also provide magazine advertiser value in digital formats. We must think beyond traditional web banner ads. We must also consider the magazine apps sharing capabilities that relates in realtime (as a shared tweet) to other people receiving the share that aren’t on mobile application platforms and can link directly to the shared magazine website or digital edition. Of course, this means that publishers must include magazine application social sharing capabilities when developing their magazine apps for the iPhone and Andriod mobile platforms.

There are magazines that have strong content value with subscription price points that can maintain must-have-it readers. For these publishers, it is completely understandable that they protect their digital content.

For other publishers, I recommend you find ways to share your content and track the benefits of real people consuming and sharing your content and advertising messages.

I have included some digital magazine embeds below.

In 2010 we will see more magazine apps, digital magazines, magazine widgets, and other unique ways to connect with the visual communication advantages of the magazine brand and it’s ability to carry and advertising message.

MagApps.com – Magazine Apps Directory

A recent discussion on the MediaPRO community site prompted me to share my take on digital edition magazine advertising.  Specifically, web based banner ads in and around digital magazines.

I agree with the need for publishers to view their digital editions as a unique brand element. Editorial multimedia and augmented ad or commercial capabilities are also excellent in digital format.  We want our print readers to be excited about the same magazine issue in their email inbox as the digital version to see the “interactive and multimedia version” of the issue.  We also want them to view web based elements that have been optimized for the website.

However, I don’t think a digital edition issue or platform is “monetized” by adding player frame banners or ad serving zones inside the issue.  Especially generic served ads.  Show a bank of text ads or an ad for a product/service with no connection to your brand and you’ll let everyone know immediately the value of your advertising program. Every magazine is different in terms of objectives online, but most publishers want to achieve a quality cover-to-cover browsing experience with their digital magazines.  Let’s not forget that a full page ad in a digital edition is an advertisement (much better than a banner ad) and should be producing ad revenue in that digital display format.  And even more revenue if the ad has been enhanced, optimized, or provides interactive elements.

I feel that relevant ads, quality creative guidelines, within the digital magazine, that enhance the reader experience, and maintain a proper multimedia balance for reader expectations will produce higher long term value and revenue to the publisher.

Please share your ideas and examples of digital magazines that are producing audience development and advertiser results.

Image: Digital Editions Discussion Group from MediaPRO

Design is why the graphic communication in a magazine creates a brand. Web design is another channel and an equally important one.

We have continued the innovation in our own digital magazine solutions and will continue to help publishers use the digital edition as a tool.

Our writer Frederic Lardinois raised a very good question when PC Magazine went digital: why is PC Magazine putting time and effort into producing a digital edition of its magazine, instead of just focusing on improving its website? The answer probably comes down to one word: design. The best thing about magazines, to many of us, is their design. Probably the most successful tech magazine of this era is Wired, which is renowned for its design.

via The Digital Magazine: Has its Time Come? .

The emerging e-reader devices will indeed create a new readership pull on this new and popular medium.

There are some strong opinions on this issue, especially those that enjoy holding their print magazines. There is a time and a place for that experience.  There is a time and a place for digital.  And, there is value in both.