Innovation Article:

Innovation in The Magazine Industry – The Tablet:

We all enjoy picking up and flicking through a magazine if it’s there in front of you, but how often do you buy one? From personal experience, as much as I love fashion magazines, I rarely buy them. I find myself looking at websites and twitter feeds of all the big UK publications. I'm sure I am not the only one to do this; online material is free and takes up less space. But what effect is this having on the magazine industry?

In the last 20 years journalism has changed dramatically, as has the way readers consume print journalism. The development of the internet and its accessibility has meant that online media is more interactive, more convenient and more attractive than the traditional form.

Many more of us are enjoying weekly or monthly magazines, such as Vogue or Q magazine, in their online form rather than their hard copies. There is a significantly greater demand for online versions of print publications, and so print publications have been forced to take on an online presence to remain competitive in the industry.

The advantage of a publication being active online, compared to its traditional form is the contemporaneousness of articles and information. What is featured in magazines is usually dated within a few days. The online versions can be updated as soon as news breaks or a new article is ready. As well as this, a lot of the content that is found in the magazine is also available online and usually free of charge. Although some publications online only give a limited length of an article and encourage you to pay to view the full issue online for a one off or monthly subscription.

A magazine with an online presence requires more than written text. Photos and video are vital to online interactivity, giving greater consumer satisfaction than reading off of a piece of paper. This has changed the work ethic of journalists. Instead of contributing a few articles over the week or month for the next issue of said publication, journalists are now required to be constantly producing content on many different platforms to feed its readership. While an article is being written or the lead up to an interview, the journalist is expected to tweet about it and to post photos on Instagram while its taking place, as well as a short report for the website and a personal blog entry about the piece as a teaser. Once articles are complete, to compliment them, photo galleries and video clips are required to add to the experience.

One of the biggest innovations in the last five years is the emergence of the tablet - the mobile internet device. Tablets such as the iPhone, iPad or the Kindle allow us to download 'apps' so that you can use websites and things you love on the go. This includes newspapers and magazine apps, which have all of the content of their print form available, with some extras, in front of you, at the click of a button. The thing that is unique about these online apps is the ability to personalise them to fit your wants and needs as a reader and their seamless links to other websites and social media (which plays a huge part in online media sharing).

There is the opportunity to comment on articles and share them via social media sites on these online tablet apps and this allows the reader to feel as though they are part of the story, and in way they add to the meaning of a story, creating colour and giving the journalist more to think about or even write something new in response. This reader response element of online journalism makes it more collaborative and more meaningful as part of a democracy.

Online social media plays an important role in the marketing of these online publications. There is a need and demand for all publication to be active on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. because they are available on the go and are a current trend. These social media sites are also apps for tablets and are available in the same place as your magazine. They act as a means for instant news sharing and allow the opportunity for users to have easy access to this information and allow the journalist to share things immediately. They encourage reader responses and sometimes create means for competition and amateur journalism.

Most people only read online articles because they have been shared on a social media site by a friend and have caught there interest. Not because of their loyal following of that publication. This highlights how people can personalise their experience of reading a magazine rather than having to read it in its entirety and also highlights how collaborative it can be.

ASOS.com is a UK online fashion brand which retails fashion and beauty products all over the world and aims its product at those in their 20s. Without the development of the internet the ASOS.com brand would not be successful or even exist as it relies on a web-savvy consumer. As an online fashion warehouse there is no limit to what’s on offer for customers to buy, as there would be in a high street store.  ASOS.com is the hub of the brand and gives its users the ability to ‘shop trends’ which are updated daily and follow the ASOS blog.

The ASOS.com magazine is a monthly magazine which is available to all VIP members of their online store.  The ‘VIP’ customer status is available by selecting an option on your online account to receive the magazine and special offers on the products they sell. The printed copy is a generic fashion and celebrity magazine, but also acts as a ‘look-book’ for products sold online.

The iPad and Tablet ASOS Magazine application is a free app and offers all of the features of the print magazine, ad free and with the added bonus of beauty tutorial videos, to show readers how to achieve hairstyles and make-up looks step by step, and in app purchasing, which give readers the freedom to see current fashion trends and buy them at the click of a button. Rather than having to put down a magazine and get to a computer to buy products. This for the company must be more profitable as it doesn’t give readers too much of chance to hesitate when wanting to buy items.

In recent issues of the printed magazine, readers have been left a note to inform them of future changes: because of the innovation of online mobile devices and their popularity the ASOS.com magazine will soon only be available to read on the ASOS magazine app. This reflects the changes the magazine industry as whole is going through and could suggest the future of all printed magazines.

But even though the ASOS.com magazine is a free publication and isn’t as prestigious as, for example, the Vogue brand, it still shows how a successful and profitable brand are aware of which changes have to be made to keep it profitable. Keeping the ASOS magazine in its printed form, with the cost of printing and distribution is not necessary as it’s in demand online and suits its audience and brand well.

Written by Kirsty Warwick-Mcdonagh