“Magazine publisher Condé Nast reports that The New Yorker‘s iPad version now has 100,000 readers, including about 20,000 people who have subscribed for $59.99 per year,” Jon Mitchell reports for ReadWriteWeb. “In addition, ‘several thousand’ people buy single weekly issues for $4.99.”
“The New Yorker‘s success on the iPad makes sense on multiple levels,” Mitchell reports. “Its rich illustrations and long-form content fit both the iPad’s laid-back, hands-on use case and its target audience. But the app also fits into a successful and growing category of reading apps that clear out all the clutter and just focus on the reading.”
Mitchell reports, “As publishers of other high-profile magazine apps see interest waning, a successful genre of iPad magazine may finally be emerging.”
Read more in the full article here.
Substance lives.
I don’t subscribe, but I bought a few issues. The content of course is great, but the presentation makes it work very well on iPad. It’s laid out very well and takes good advantage of iPad’s capabilities. The New Yorker is setting the standard, so far.
Just wondering if the New Yorker on the iPad contains advertising? I would think advertisers would pay to reach the iPad demographic, especially if there are direct links from the ads…
The problem with using this business model is this: Consumers do not like to read/watch ads. Of course advertiser would like to reach those, and magazine publishers would like to take their money, but the whole business depends on consumers who DO NOT like it. That’s why traditional print magazines are failing (too much ads for not enough worthwhile content), and hopefully iPad/web-magazine do not fall into the same trap. I for one prefer good quality content for which I pay, and ad sponsored content for stuff I do not wish to pay for.
Sorry, you are wrong. Traditional print is not failing because consumers don’t want to see ads. Traditional print is failing because consumers are finding electronic media more satisfying, for a broad range of reasons. Without advertising in quality publications, your puny subscription wouldn’t pay the cost of a fraction of the content. The MODEL is to produce quality content, determine the attributes of readers attracted to said content, sell space to advertisers with goods and services suited to the demographics of the circulation to defray the cost and generate profit. Without the advertisers footing the lion’s share of the cost of production, subscription rates would be too high for most consumers. Next time you complain about advertising, just remember that you would have very little content to consume and enjoy. They are freighting the bill. Just ignore what you are not interested in.
Gee, Monday, I sent this info to MDN in a similar article.
Thanks for nothing.
And while you’re at it, maybe you should change your name to Mac Daily History.
How about some love for MacBook Lighter Than Air?
That was way cool. Thank you.
I subscribe for free to the iOS app (free because I already had a print subscription). This is by far the best magazine app I’ve seen. It has more than the print version. It has some authors reading their own fiction or poems. It has videos and slideshows that don’t appear in the print version (which I still get). It even has cartoons from the past.
Navigation is also very straightforward. Down to continue reading an article or review, right to go to the next piece. Or one can go to the table of contents or use a sort of cover view process.
There are ads, but they’re like the print ads in The New Yorker: not Crazy Eddie or banners but full page, well-constructed ads with links to videos or web sites. For example, movie ads will point you to the trailer.
The only gotcha is that the issues are big (about 125-150 MB) and take a while to download. But I really like the app.
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