"Hulu for Magazines" Launching Early 2011–But Only for Android

November 11, 2010 at 3:30 am PT

Next Issue Media, the “Hulu for Magazines” joint venture, plans to have its digital storefront open early next year. But you won’t be able to shop there if you’ve got an iPad.

Next Issue‘s initial incarnation will only work for devices running Google’s Android software, CEO Morgan Guenther tells me.

It’s not a technical issue, Guenther says, because “we’re ready to support Apple as well,” and he says he’s confident that will happen. But “Android is a very important tablet platform, and a very important platform for smartphones.” (Read Walt Mossberg’s review of Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy Tab.)

Guenther wouldn’t disclose other details about his launch, but you don’t have to squint to read between the lines here. The takeaway is that Google has been flexible on the business issues that are important to the publishers that own his company. And that Apple’s not there yet.

The key split, still: Publishers want the ability to sell their tablet magazines directly to consumers, or at least to be able to access the data that iTunes collects when it sells them.

Some publishers tell me that Apple’s stance has softened somewhat since this summer, when the company refused to let Time Warner’s Sports Illustrated sell subscriptions for its app. But that hasn’t led to any real concessions so far.

If you buy a subscription to Newsweek’s iPad app, for instance, the publisher has no idea who you are or how to reach you: Apple keeps all the data, as well as 30 percent of every dollar.

Presumably Guenther and his publishers are hoping sales of their magazines take off on Android tablets and phones, giving them leverage in discussions with Apple. And that seems to be what Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was getting at it with his oblique but pointed comments last week.

But all of this wrangling may be non-issues if publishers can’t figure out how to come up with digital magazines that people are interested in, at a price they’ll pay. Aside from a few outliers like Condé Nast’s Wired, early sales numbers from iPad magazines haven’t blown anyone away.

[Image credit: Hard seat sleeper]

Tagged with: advertising, Android, app, Apple, Conde Naste, digital, Galaxy Tab, Google, Hulu for magazines, Internet, iPad, Jeff Bewkes, magazines, MediaMemo, Morgan Guenther, Next Issue Media, Peter Kafka, Publishers, Samsung, software, Sports Illustrated, storefront, subscriptions, tablet, Time Inc., Time Warner, venture, Wired

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Anonymous

“Android is a very important tablet platform”

This guy is a genius. I would love to get a coffee at Starbucks(tm) with him and listen to his vast mobile device knowledge for hours.
Anonymous

Yeah. This smacks of the brilliant tactics the music industry used to allow Amazon lower pricing/DRM-free for fear of iTunes. Good luck with that, I say.
http://www.shoutpedia.com/ a_usman

Wow, great, app and only for android.
Anonymous

Pure genius — release only for the OS that currently has somewhere between zero and 4% tablet market share…and whose customers tend to expect everything to be free of charge.

The reason most magazines aren’t selling on the iPad, is because the apps are horrible — basically JPEGs of the print version with no ability to change text size, etc. resulting in huge files. Also you have bug factories (see the constantly crashing NY Times app as a shining example).

What the magazine industry needs to do is hire some competent programmers first. (Farming out the work to Adobe, which has it’s own conflicting political agenda won’t work, guys.)
Anonymous

As a small magazine publisher – The Beef – waiting for a nice-n-easy way of getting our title on iPad… I’m still waiting for good news. Until then, we have to content ourselves with Flash-based versions of our print edition… Neither Pressmart nor Issuu seem to work with iPad yet.
Anonymous

@Ted_T, actually that 4% market only applies to Tablets, and that is due mainly to supply. Wait until January of 2011, and the statistics “could..maybe..we will see” change. The iphone is at 24% of the market with android up to 21% this last quarter, a 7% increase for android and a drop for iphone. So in other words: the market is new and changes quarterly! No bets are off the table. This could be a shrewd move; time will tell.
Anonymous

The thing is, the name of the game here is selling magazines. Who is more likely to pay for a magazine? Someone who will be reading it on a 10′ tablet or on a 3~4″ smartphone?

And if you want to bring the Android vs. iPhone comparison here, you can’t suddenly pretend the iPod Touch doesn’t exist — it is an app hungry iOS device for which Android has no answer. Any way you slice it, trying to sell magazines exclusively on Android is not a very bright move.
Anonymous

The main issue here is Apple wanting 30% of each dollar and hiding the profile demographics combined with the new upcoming android market.

Advertising is all about market identification and magazines really want that: so selling on a lower platform that is growing while costing less and giving user info to take to advertisers: not a bad investment.

And as I said, after January other tablets will be in the market that will require “no” program changes to port to as they are android based. Another plus.

If apple changes it’s itunes policies and starts giving away demographics, then 30% for circulation may be enough of a sell. If it wasn’t an issue, then this article wouldn’t even have been written because apple would have already snatched up all periodicals…but it hasn’t.

If you want to compare phones or tablets you might as well add in the ebook style devices that are 1/4th the price and easier to read than the ipad. Who is more likely to pay for an e-magazine, someone that just wants to read books and magazines and newspapers easily or someone that wants a more general device?

But really, to answer your who would use a phone to read, have you noticed there are ereader apps for all phones (kindle/nook/etc). – apparently lots of people read on their phones…go figure.

The article says that other platforms are available – once a market exists. Thus, once magazines start selling on Android and a business model is created, expect them to port to other venues such as: ebooks, netbooks, and even the ipad/ipohne outside itunes. You are correct that exclusive android would be a terrible mistake.

But any way you slice it, apple is not a good business investment for magazines/newspapers that advertise until apple shares user information and lower their cut of the pie. These kind of discussions must drive the people who make these decisions go nuts, hehe.
http://twitter.com/goodman Goodman Holiday

The iPad already has a “Hulu for Magazines”. It’s called Zinio. And it allows you to subscribe to magazines, and read them on multiple platforms.
Anonymous

It’s not that they don’t *want* to sell magazines on the iPad, but Apple won’t give them access to the data they need to make it profitable.

Magazines get 60 – 100% of their revenue from advertising, if they can’t get demographic data from Apple, then they stand to lose money if they sell subscriptions on the iPad (since iPad subscriptions will presumably erode their paper magazine sales).

An advertiser will pay a lot more money to advertise to a specific demographic than they will to an anonymous reader.

If they start selling on Android and have good sales, you can bet that Apple will soon capitulate and will give the magazines everything they’ve asked for.
http://www.digitalmagazinedeals.com Digital Magazines

As the owner of an Android based tablet and someone who runs digital magazines for a publisher I’m very excited to see how this new platform pans out. We currently publish Flash based digital magazines (which obviously won’t run on Apple devices) and have recently launched an Ipad/iPhone specific app to publish certain titles.
The Flash based digital magazines sell well and make a good alternative for our overseas subscribers (saves them the high international postage costs). On the other hand we haven’t sold many subscriptions or single issues through the iPad app and the costs involved are astronomical compared to our standard digital magazine setup. Add to that the fact that Apple take 30% of any sales we do make and it seems clear that publishing specifically for the iPad/iPhone just isn’t viable for small to medium sized publishers yet.

Hopefully this new Android only approach (to start with at least) will show Apple that they aren’t the only option out there for publishers and that if they can’t offer a better deal then the majority of publishers will probably look for alternatives. With the launch of Honeycomb this year (and the flood of new tablets with it) I think we’re going to see Android taking a major slice of market share away from Apple.
http://viettelonline.com/ USB 3G

Spot on, especially Joanna. This place is just an Apple and Android fansite now.

"Hulu for Magazines" Launching Early 2011–But Only for Android

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