Why Elle, Nylon and Popular Science said yes to Apple’s App Store subscription terms

“Magazines’ greatest weapon is their ability to describe their subscribers to advertisers, but Apple won’t tell publishers who’s subscribing through the App Store unless subscribers specifically say it’s okay. “Without the demographics, which iTunes won’t release, the print world is castrated,” said Gary Armstrong, the former Wenner Media executive who is now consulting on branded content development for media brands,” Nat Ives reports for AdAge.

“So what are Elle, Nylon and Popular Science doing, accepting Apple’s terms?” Ives asks. “For Nylon, a small independent magazine that said Apple approached it six weeks ago to participate, the advantages of a new distribution platform seemed to far outweigh the drawbacks. And plenty of subscribers will let Apple share their information with Nylon, a brand in which they’re sufficiently interested to subscribe, after all, said Marvin Scott Jarrett, editor in chief. And if they don’t? They’re still paying for the app: Good enough. ‘As long as they’re paying the money to subscribe, why should we care that much?’ Mr. Jarrett asked… ‘The cost of developing our own e-commerce platform right now would not be viable,’ he said. ‘So what they’re offering us is a great turnkey tool with little to no financial risk.'”

Read more about publishers who get it in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dow C.” for the heads up.]