Magzter, Digital Newsstand, Provides Global Digital Distribution

Talk about publishing with adrenaline pumping deadlines --- That's magazine publishing with weekly and monthly drop dead dates. Think about writing AND publishing a complete book every week or month. I know, they have staffs (some not so much, though) but an awful lot has to continually come together. I'd say the magazine publishing environment is to the publishing industry as the emergency room environment is to the health care industry.

Publishing a DAILY newspaper is another story --- How about writing AND publishing a book every day?

Magazines, once on the decline and now rising again, owe new successes to adapting digital business models. Selling, distribution and paywalls have been problems, but, they are obviously being solved.

Magzter, a two year old digital magazine newsstand, is bursting at the seams in growth because they are providing what appears to be the most comprehensive global distribution.

IF ONLY the digital book publishing industry had a similar global distribution mechanism! They don't have such a thing, do they? I guess Amazon, and maybe even Apple, have international customers --- but, do they wait for the customers to come or do they actively distribute to these customers?

Magzter has offices in India, London, Singapore and New York and has been making its way across Asia and Europe.

Could digital book publishing learn and take away something from the digital newsstands' biz models?

This from Bill Mickey, Editor of FOLIO magazine:


Hearst Signs on with Digital Newsstand Magzter

All U.S. titles, plus some international editions will be available.

Magzter, one of a burgeoning sector of digital magazine newsstands, has been courting the North American market, recently signing Maxim and Newsweek. The company just landed another big fish in Hearst, which has put all of its U.S. titles, and some of its international ones, onto the platform.

The two-year-old Magzter has offices in India, London, Singapore and New York and has been making its way across Asia and Europe, more recently setting its sights on signing up magazines in the U.S. The service now claims about 7 million app downloads from a collection of 1,500 magazines from 600 publishers.

Global digital distribution is something publishers are clearly interested in—the original digital editions were often used to grow international subscriptions without the cost of shipping print—and the various digital newsstands have differing degrees of regional representation. Magzter says its highest concentration of downloads are in the U.S., India, UK, China and Singapore.

Available platforms are currently iOS, Android and Windows 8.

For thepublishers that are able to, distributing tablet editions through as many outlets as possible has been the over-riding strategy. "We absolutely have to be wherever digital magazines are being sold and we were impressed with some of the marketing plans and objectives shared with us by the Magzter team," says Chris Wilkes, vice president of Hearst Magazines' App Lab. "As the space develops further, we think we will see many additional niche players enter the space successfully and we will want to partner with many of them."


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