Posts Tagged ‘digital magazine’

With all of the talk surrounding the new Apple iPad — the positive talk about what it can do for newspaper and magazine content providers, not the overwhelmingly negative albeit humorous reaction the name itself has conjured — we are extremely excited to see the possibilities this presents for publishers. As print becomes more and more cost-prohibitive — and feature-prohibitive; it’s hard to print video on paper — more publications than ever are taking the dive into digital, including one of our clients, The Council of Real Estate Brokerage Managers (CRB), a not-for-profit affiliate of the National Association of REALTORS®.

Their bimonthly magazine, Real Estate Business, said goodbye to print with its January/February 2010 issue and will debut its all-digital format for the March/April issue. We’re excited not only because this new format will be free, forwardable and printable (the print edition was exclusive to CRB’s membership of nearly 6,000 residential real estate brokerage owners and managers), but because we now have the opportunity to add rich media, including video, live linking and lead generation/analytics capabilities for our advertisers. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for the magazine, one that will surely benefit the CRB Council’s membership which depends in part on advertising to fund its cutting-edge educational offerings for brokers, owners and managers.

Click here (or the picture above) to see a sneak preview of the new digital reader format and all that it can do!

As the digital age continues to grow into every facet of our daily lives, personal and professional, I am amazed at the speed in which it grows. Most everyone I know has a smartphone of some sort (my choice is an iPhone). Everyone seems to own a computer, often more than one per household. No one really seems to remember a “film camera.” And “hanging out” with someone now means chatting with them on Facebook.

Today, as I was checking in on one of my favorite Web sites, macrumors.com, I came across an article that outlines how Time Inc. is developing their Sports Illustrated magazine to go digital. Yep, it has begun. Magazine publishers are moving (many of them already have) away from printing their magazines to loading them online so they can be accessed by computers, smartphones and tablets.

As the anticipation of Apple’s new tablet grows, Time Inc. posted this video showing the direction they are moving towards in preparation for tablet computers. The functionality of the magazine is impressive. The video also shows why there should be no need for a physical keyboard on a tablet. The keyboard only appears when you need it, maximizing visual real estate for content viewing. Get ready people, this is the shape of things to come.