The Financial Times and others report overnight that Time Inc is working with a group of magazine publishers in the US to create a digital store for magazines to avoid control over distribution as has happened with music through Apple’s iTunes.
The new service would serve as a digital shopfront for magazine content. Reports say it will be announced in a month. Given the growth in eReader devices, movement in the distribution of content was inevitable.
Matt Buchanan writing at Gizmodo thinks this plan by magazine publishers will fail.
Great, except that it’s not going to work. As Peter Kafka points out, they have to convince people to sign up for another service—not an easy feat if they’re already tangled up with a Kindle or Apple. Especially if this new service will be just magazines, and not include newspapers. And there’s no way Amazon or Apple will let the publishers tie a separate service into their devices, pissing in their pool.
Consumers have already gathered around iTunes, Amazon and others for digital content. Smart magazine publishers will use these established new media distribution channels rather than create something new with its own costs and marketing challenges and with a connection to old media distribution.
In this new world, as music publishers have found, content wants to be set free. Those who embrace the most flexible distribution models will prosper.
Unfortunately for newsagents, in the long term, this means we need to reinvent our businesses. And before people say I am in a gloomy mindset, no, I did say long term. Also, the change opportunities are excellent for us.