American Angler/Fly Tyer/Gray’s Online Full Beta

[Zach Matthews]

Hey guys –

Cool news from Morris Group general manager Steve Walburn today.  American Angler and its sister magazines Fly Tyer and Gray’s Sporting Journal are beta-testing online electronic versions of the magazines.  These are full, ThisisFly-style copies of the real magazine.  Based on the beta I played with, these are highly awesome.

Here they are:

American Angler:

http://digitaledition.qwinc.com/publication/?i=12472

Fly Tyer:

http://digitaledition.qwinc.com/publication?i=12854

Gray’s Sporting Journal

http://digitaledition.qwinc.com/publication?i=13107

All very cool if you ask me.  Eventually these will require a log in for subscribers, but for now you can get them for free.  They are also searchable, clickable, and can take embedded music and video.  This is the future of magazine distribution: a print version and a special features digital version.  For me personally, the search feature and hot links are absolutely huge.  Archiving potential is awesome with this tool, so be sure to support it and let the magazine know you like it.

Zach

[cole m.]

Awesome, thanks!

[Carter Simcoe]

clearly this will never work.

[Tim Angeli]

It’s interesting to see the switch of media to digital format unfolding very quickly before us right now.  The local Ann Arbor paper just announced that it will switch over to completely digital in July.  We’ve already begun to see some of the changes with online publications like Thisisfly and Catch Magazine….and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it begins with all the other publications as well.  

-Tim

[Mike McKeown]

Very interesting…

[Grant Wright]

Awesome stuff.

[Zach Matthews]

Hey Grant –

First of all, my understanding is that American Angler, etc., are going to be offering this as a supplement to the paper business; not as a replacement.  AA has a talented business team behind it up at Morris Publications.  They are getting hammered in the newspaper market right now but they are one of the few companies who are doing well in the magazine side; if you just go through and count pages and ads, you can judge the relative business success of a magazine pretty clearly.

Carl Mullins at Morris negotiated a very smart deal with his printing service where they digitize the magazine using the files they have to print the thing in the first place.  Most magazines are created using a commercial product called Quark, although I believe the Morris Group is now using the Adobe suite.  At any rate, the final output is in PDF format, so it’s pretty easy to turn it into an online product.  The expense obviously comes from having to go through and stick in those hotlinks, and ultimately if they added video, etc., they would need a design team to do that.

However, the search function and page jump features are just inherent in the PDF format; my point is that AA can basically produce this product for next to nothing, while giving the subscriber a huge added value if you ask me.  There wouldn’t be any second subscription requirement or any digital-only edition (at least not in the near term).  You’d simply get a log in with your subscription so you can access the digital version.

What does AA get out of this?  Several things.  First, your eyes; readership would theoretically increase with more opportunities to read the magazine at work, etc.  Second, your email address, which is a valuable commodity provided you voluntarily give it and opt in to a newsletter program (and as I’ve said before, the newsletter from AA is quite good).  Finally, they get experience in the digital realm.  For most of the 2000s, the story has been the old media getting its ass handed to it by the nimble new media.  However, I sense a shift now.

If you look at, for example, Hulu.com, you can see that old media is finally figuring the internet out.  They have tons of content and tons of experience and all they really needed was to get their heads around the newer distribution models.  Slowly but surely that is happening.  The old Virtual Flyshop administered by Fly Fisherman magazine was a horrible money-loser.  But ThisisFly and Catch, while probably not profitable yet, have at least managed to land some real advertisers.

Over time, especially with the rise of portable handheld computers like the iPhone and various tablet PCs and eBooks, I think we’re going to see an almost complete decay of traditional print media–for the ephemeral parts of publishing.  Anything that goes away in thirty days really becomes a perfect target for digitization.  Books will always be with us but newspapers–like pamphlets and broadsheets of old–are probably done for.  Magazines will most likely split with various high concept glossies still putting out paper editions, while more nuts and bolts magazines like the fishing market will probably eventually be completely electronic.

At the end of the day, the magazines are *already* completely electronic, as you can see by this beta test.  Everything is laid out on a computer and has been for years; distributing that final product by computer makes perfect sense, especially with the costs of printing going up.  Now, I don’t think that American Angler is going to go away from paper this year or next year, but by 2012 or so, at this rate?  Who knows.  We might all be carrying around little eBook readers like big iPhones by then; certainly no one sitting in 1990 or even 2000 could have predicted that the iPhone would be as advanced as it currently is.  With OLED technology, better batteries, and “flat” e-Ink units like the Amazon Kindle, we’re getting closer and closer to the demise of paper.  And I don’t think it matters; readership might actually increase.  The model for magazines has always been to distribute ads to subscribers.  Subscription fees are very low relative to costs of production and would remain low whether the magazine was digital or paper.  I just think people have to get used to the idea that the content remains equivalent regardless of what it’s printed on.  Frankly, to me, the digital version open in my browser looks even better than paper because it is backlit and bright and vertical to my eyes.

So, to answer your question, at the end of the day the advertisers only care about getting their product in front of customers and convincing them to buy it.

[Rich Kovars]

As much as I like the online stuff, I like what Zinio is doing better.  They put out DRM’d PDF versions that I can read anywhere.  Don’t need a connection.  I can make notes and highlight sections that I can refer to later.  They don’t do multimedia yet, but it can’t be too far off.  I would like to see the magazines available there as well as online.  

–R

*******EDIT

Guess I should check things out more thoroughly first.  Didn’t see the download PDF link at first.  If that stays it would be nice.

Zach,  have you heard any push back because of readership reporting.  It is my understanding that for marketing it is the norm to claim multiple readers for each issue sold.  That probably won’t happen with digital copies.  

******EDIT 2

I like the way they have implemented it.

[Grant Wright]

Thanks for the great insight.

[Tim Angeli]

Zach,

I think you’re dead on with that explaination.  I feel like in a few years digital media is going to be the norm, with print media being a minority, at least in the magazine and news sector.  Books are a different discussion all together, but changes are occuring there as well, as evident with the Amazon Kindle.  

As a consumer, I actually prefer digital advertisements because it includes the ability to instantly look further into companies and their specific products through embedded links.  In my opinion, this is a great way for companies to excel, especially companies with top notch websites as was discussed in another recent topic.  

-Tim

[kara]

Great news, Zach!

[Corey Kruitbosch]

Very cool … I really like the format. The software is nice and easy to understand for online reading. It does seem a bit chunky on my computer for some reason… and I really dislike the page turn noise. Being able to download a PDF is great! I would much rather store all of my magazines digitally than have the physical item around and taking up space!

Kudos to Morris group .. I would LOVE to see all the older back issues made available in PDF format!

[none]

You say AA won’t make a digital-only subscription but there’s what I would like as an overseas reader.
The real magazine subscription for international readers are petty much 60% shipping costs. This makes a subscription to the magazine pretty pricey.

I would love to subscribe to the digital version for a smaller fee than a overseas subscription.
And maybe a buy-per-issue would be great idea too.

Jay

[Bryan Gregson]

I’d love the idea! Very, very cool!

[Mark Schafer]

I’d forgotten how much I miss my Gray’s subscription.

[anonymous]

Hi

While I don’t doubt

[Colin M.]

thanks for the heads up!

[Zach Matthews]

Hey Will –

Don’t worry man, the needs of the average guy are surely high in the editors’ minds.

[Corey Kruitbosch]

…  I tried the .pdf  and after  10 mins am still …

These seem to be the full rez versions … Gray’s, the biggest of the bunch, is 420 megs. Super sweet, but prob overkill. As comparison SWFF PDFs are about 10 megs.

[david whitfield]

Zach,

This is very cool.

[Author]

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