So this one’s a bit of a head-scratcher: Conde Nast is going to raise the prices of two of its tablet titles.

GQ and Vanity Fair used to offer readers who’d already bought a single digital issue a discount on subsequent purchases. But it’s doing away with that next month.

So effectively, loyal readers of  GQ on the iPad will see prices go from $2.99 to $4.99 an issue, while Vanity Fair will go from $3.99 to $4.99.

The move is part of Conde’s decision to move those two titles, along with Glamour, from a digital publishing system it had built itself last year to one from Adobe. That’s the same system Conde already uses to publish Wired magazine and other titles, and it’s the one the publisher chose after a bake-off last fall.

The shift means Conde will stop supporting the existing apps for those three titles at Apple’s iTunes store, and will ask users to download new apps over the coming weeks. Anyone who bought digital versions of the three magazines in the last year will still be able to read them, as long as they’ve downloaded and archived the issues.* And Conde is giving readers a heads up via in-app ads like the one to the left.*

Conde will try to goose sales for Glamour, the first magazine to shift platforms, by cutting the app’s price down to $0.99 for a week starting next Tuesday. Which should be a good way to help the app move to the top of iTunes’ charts — people love cheap apps.

So why push the price back up after that? And why raise prices for the other two titles?

Conde says the platform shift gives the publisher a chance to “reexamine pricing”, and that it now wants to sell all of its digital titles at the same price analog copies command at a newsstand. (Or close to it – both the New Yorker and Wired still sell for a dollar less at iTunes than their paper counterparts).

Which is really a way of saying “boy oh boy would we like to sell subscriptions, because when we do, we’ll offer monthly or yearly committments at a steep discount to individual sales, just like we do with paper copies.”

But that’s not going to be happening at iTunes anytime soon, because none of the big magazine publishers have shown any inclination to accept Apple’s subscription rules — at least for titles they’re already selling in paper form. Meanwhile Conde has announced that it plans to sell its digital magazines for Google’s Android this spring – but has yet to mention subscriptions.

*If you have to reset your machine entirely, though, you’ll be out of luck altogether. Sometimes digital just isn’t as durable as paper and ink.

**The shift also means that anyone who has enjoyed reading Glamour, GQ or Vanity Fair on their iPhone is out of luck. Conde says for the near-term, its new magazine apps will only be formatted for the iPad.

The move isn’t a total surprise, as Condé and Adobe have been working together closely for more than a year. But Condé wasn’t convinced that using Adobe, and/or any outside software company at all, was the best way to go. And last spring’s Apple/Flash flare-up gave the publisher pause about going forward with Adobe. But that’s over now.

In practical terms, that means that iPad titles that Condé Nast has already published on its own, like GQ and Glamour, will be “reintroduced” using Adobe tools. And that Condé executive Scott Dadich, who spearheaded Condé’s first Adobe launch when he was creative director at Wired, is now an even shinier star.

Condé’s press release:

CONDÉ NAST WILL USE ADOBE TECHNOLOGY FOR DIGITAL MAGAZINE PRODUCTION

New York, N.Y., October 25, 2010 – Condé Nast plans to introduce digital replica editions across its portfolio of magazine brands using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, it was announced today by Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., President of Condé Nast.

This decision comes as the result of an ongoing R&D period that included the introduction of five digital replica apps using two different approaches and tools in order to gain maximum learning in this emerging area.  The company will continue to seek the best technologies to bring its award-winning content to market as platforms and devices emerge.

Digital editions of WIRED and The New Yorker are available for iPad and were created by the magazines using Adobe tools and workflows.  Brands with apps already in the market – GQ, Vanity Fair and Glamour – will be recreated using Adobe tools.

“The innovative work our in-house team at Condé Nast Digital did made us first to market with replicas on iPhone and iPad and has allowed significant learnings,” Mr. Sauerberg said.  “Our team considered many factors to ensure we had a platform that could be continually enhanced to meet the needs of our consumers and distributors.”

Joe Simon, Chief Technology Officer of Condé Nast, is participating in a keynote discussion about this announcement at MAX, Adobe’s annual worldwide conference taking place in Los Angeles today.

“We have always intended to deliver our content on a variety of platforms and devices, and the Adobe Design Suite will help us efficiently achieve the ‘author once, publish anywhere’ goal,” Mr. Simon noted.

Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, operates in 25 countries.  In the United States, Condé Nast publishes 18 consumer magazines, two trade publications and 27 websites that garner international acclaim and unparalleled consumer engagement.

The publisher is rolling out its “best practices” for iPad ad makers this morning, via a press release and presentation. Most of this stuff seems like common sense to me: Take advantage of Apple’s (AAPL) device, but make sure readers know how to engage with the ad, etc. But again, it’s the very early days, and if you haven’t spent much time with the tablets, it will be news to you.

Ditto for the other findings in Condé’s research, which I would find more interesting if the publisher put them out in raw data form instead of qualitative assertions. But Condé thinks it’s worth sharing with the outside world. So if you want to take a look, too:

CONDÉ NAST RESEARCH OFFERS KEY CONSUMER INSIGHTS INTO
iPAD DIGITAL MAGAZINE APPLICATION ENGAGEMENT AND EXPECTATIONS

Results pave way for initial recommendation of “5 Best Practices” for advertisers

NEW YORK, October 13, 2010 – Condé Nast, which was the first magazine publisher to offer digital magazines on the iPhone and iPad, released key insights today derived from the first stage of a multi-phase research initiative evaluating consumer engagement. Based on over 100 hours of one-on-one interviews and more than 5,000 in-app surveys this early feedback on overall consumer usability, expectations, and sentiment has shaped initial recommendations on “best practices” for advertisers. Brands included in the study were GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired and Glamour.

Overall iPad and brand experience:
“We continue to see that reader engagement with our digital magazines apps, in terms of time spent, is on par with or exceeds our print editions,” said Scott McDonald, SVP market research, Condé Nast. “We were surprised to find however that many iPad users surveyed were not the typical tech “early adopter” or familiar with Apple products and their navigation conventions. This has very important implications for application interface design.”

Specific to Condé Nast digital magazines, eight in ten reported that the content and experience associated with the brands met or surpassed their expectations, and 83% reported a likelihood to purchase the next month’s digital issue. Eighty-nine percent felt the apps were easy to use and, on the whole, users showed little sensitivity to download times.

It was also noted that users preferred to read the magazines in portrait mode, but chose to watch video in the landscape orientation. There was also an expectation for flexibility in buying options, e.g., a single copy purchase, a digital subscription or supplement to their print subscription.

Advertising:
User recall and enjoyment were the basis for establishing the overall success of a particular ad.

The study showed that readers expected to find ads in digital magazines and expressed that their inclusion was an enhancement to the experience, which is often the case with printed magazines.

“When we initiated our R & D phase, we felt strongly that by choosing a multi-advertiser model for our digital magazines it would enable us to garner some valuable learning that we could pass on to our clients,” said Condé Nast Chief Marketing Officer Lou Cona. “With such a rapidly changing marketplace, we expect behaviors to evolve quickly; however, our initial results enable us to offer clients our five best practices for producing successful digital magazine creative, insights we feel will be helpful as the industry navigates this new medium.”

Condé Nast’s five best practices for creating advertising that will engage and resonate with the user:
1. Take advantage of This New Medium’s functionality: Users responded positively to the additional functionality of the iPad. Therefore advertisers that included compelling and unique experiences, that were self contained and exclusive to the environment, were liked more than those that did not. Increased opportunities for engagement including video, photo galleries and links to websites are recommended.

2. Provide Clear Instructions on How to Engage with Your App: As many surveyed were not familiar with iPad navigation, ads that included clear calls to action and cues on how to engage the creative were more effective. Icons should be clearly visible and intuitive and state whether more content or additional functionality can be found.

3. Supply Additional Information but Avoid Repurposing Creative Assets Used for Other Media: Users enjoyed advertisements that provided something new and useful. Including detailed product info and how-to’s are recommended, however re-purposing video or creative used for other mediums is not suggested.

4. Tell A Story: The most remembered ads contained narratives. The iPad’s ability to showcase various forms of media offers a unique opportunity for telling a brands’ story. However, it was discovered that users became bored when the same advertisement was used repeatedly throughout a single application.

5. Lead Them Down the Purchase Funnel: Brands that enabled a user to directly access and purchase the featured product faired better than companies who offered homepage links alone. It is also recommended that due to compatibility issues, Flash not be used.

As Yahoo (YHOO) seeks to sort out its women’s strategy online, Brandon Holley (pictured here)–the editor-in-chief of its main women-focused site, Shine–is leaving for a job with the same title at Condé Nast’s Lucky magazine.

In the women’s space, Yahoo’s Shine site, is huge, but has lagged in social networking and other current trends.

Juicing it up is important, since the women’s market is a big one for advertisers, with many competitors–from iVillage to AOL (AOL) to a recent effort by Demand Media to reach women using a site created with supermodel Tyra Banks.

Here is the press release from the New York media giant about the move by Holley, who had been at Condé Nast before (and you can read a story here in the New York Times from earlier this year, in which she compares her online and offline jobs):

BRANDON HOLLEY NAMED EDITOR IN CHIEF OF LUCKY

New York, N.Y., September 8, 2010–Brandon Holley has been named Editor in Chief of Lucky, it was announced today by Thomas J. Wallace, Editorial Director of Condé Nast. Her appointment is effective September 20, 2010. Ms. Holley was the Editor in Chief and business lead of Yahoo! Shine, one of the largest online destinations for women, since 2007. She replaces Kim France, who is leaving the company.

:Brandon is an extraordinarily innovative editor whose extensive experience in both the print and digital realms will be key to developing the Lucky brand across multiple platforms,” said Mr. Wallace.

Under Ms. Holley’s leadership, Yahoo! Shine attracted 25 million visitors per month, according to comScore. Her appointment at Lucky marks a return to Condé Nast for Ms. Holley, who was Editor in Chief of Jane from 2005 to 2007, when it ceased publication. In 2001 she launched ELLEgirl where she remained editor until 2005. Ms. Holley served as senior editor at GQ from 1998 to 2000. She was also part of the launch team of Time Out New York where she served as the dining and shopping editor from 1995 to 1998. She started her magazine career as a writer for Paper magazine and worked as a fact checker for Rolling Stone. In 2002, Ms. Holley was named one of Advertising Age’s Women to Watch.

Lucky and Luckymag.com focus on shopping and style, showcasing what to wear and how to wear it, while making fashion and beauty fun and accessible. The magazine, which launched in 2000, has a circulation of 1.1 million. Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, operates in 25 countries.

In the United States, Condé Nast publishes 18 consumer magazines, two trade publications and 27 websites that garner international acclaim and unparalleled consumer engagement.

This one’s from Glamour, and you can check it out for yourself at iTunes. If you’re very impatient, you can see a promotional video at the bottom of this post.

A quick rundown of things you should know about this one:

• Like Condé’s GQ and Vanity Fair apps, this one was built in-house, as opposed to Condé’s Wired app, which was built with Adobe’s (ADBE) somewhat controversial assistance. Casual readers may not tell the difference, but the performance of the two sets of apps is of intense interest to Condé, which is trying to figure out which way to go. The New Yorker is scheduled to get the Adobe treatment next.
• The app sells for $3.99, the same as the print edition. That could change down the line, because Condé is in R&D mode right now. Condé would also like to sell its own subscriptions for this stuff, but so far, it can’t. Just like every other magazine publisher.
• A new twist for this app: Readers can tap on certain images and get whisked off to a Web page where they can buy the item. Condé doesn’t get a slice of any sale, but that could change down the line.
• Excitement over the iPad goosed ad sales for Glamour’s September issue, which clocks in at 420 pages. That’s the highest total in 23 years. On the flip side, producing the app took real resources, says editor Cindi Leive. “It’s definitely a lot of work, but we’re not complaining. It’s 1,000 percent worth it.”
• Not to put too fine a point on it, but Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, and particularly the iPad department, skews very dude-heavy. This is one of the first iPad apps–and the first magazine app, I believe–built with the ladies in mind.

So, ladies–what do you think?

Nope. But it might be generating a few extra bucks.

Publishers are being tight-lipped and/or vague about their iPad sales, but here’s some directional news from Condé Nast, which launched one of the first magazine apps for the device: Condé says its iPhone/iPad version of GQ has sold 57,000 copies since its launch in December. (By comparison, Condé moves 900,000 print copies a month to subscribers and newsstand buyers.)

Fine. But what about iPad sales, which kicked off in April? Astonishingly, Condé doesn’t actually know, because it doesn’t sell an iPad-specific app. So it can’t tell if any particular app was bought with the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad in mind.

GQ spokeswoman Peri Dorset allows that the company did see a spike with the April 3 launch of the iPad. And then again with the launch of the 3G model. But that’s about as precise as she’ll get.

We do know, though, that three weeks into January, GQ had sold 12,000 copies of that month’s app, and that was just iPhone/iPods. So I’m not convinced the iPad has provided GQ with a huge boost.

Best-case scenario, for now, is that the apps provide some ancillary income. How much? GQ sells its app for $2.99, but repeat buyers can get subsequent issues (or back issues) for $1.99. For argument’s sake, let’s guess that two-thirds of GQ’s app buyers are first-time buyers. By my math, that’s about $150,000 in gross sales revenue–$112,400 from $2.99 sales, and $37,400 from $1.99 sales. Knock off 30 percent for Apple’s (AAPL) take and you’re down to $105,000.

Needle mover? Nope. But Condé also gets the chance to sell some advertisers the right to be a premium app sponsor, so the dollars could pile up, eventually. Enough to cover development costs, at the very least. Call it a decent start.

Okay, Condé rivals: Ready to share your numbers?

If Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is correct in parsing Apple’s new developer agreement, then Apple (AAPL) is preventing Adobe (ADBE) from using a tool that will port applications created in Flash to Apple’s iPhone and iPad operating systems.

Adobe has been pointing to that workaround as its answer to Apple’s anti-Flash campaign, arguing that developers could create programs that work on most of the Web as well as Apple’s platforms. Now it appears that Steve Jobs and company are forcing developers to choose: Our way or no way.

If true, it’s yet another blow to publisher Condé Nast’s efforts to build tablet magazines with Adobe’s help. Last year, the publisher seemed confident that its effort with Adobe would allow it to create a single digital format that worked on all kinds of iPad-style tablets. But by the end of February, it was rethinking that and began pulling back on plans to work with Adobe.

Caught in the crossfire: Condé’s Wired Magazine, which is supposed to be the first title produced by Adobe that works on the iPad. On the flip side, the other path that Condé has been pursuing–creating less ambitious versions of its titles directly for the iPad, like the GQ app it started selling last weekend–now looks very smart.

I’ve asked Apple and Condé Nast for comment. Here’s Adobe’s response, via spokesman Russell Brady: “Can’t say that much at the moment other than that we are aware of the new SDK language and are looking into it.  We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5.”

Magazine trade pub Minonline has a gallery of sites that didn’t work for iPad users this weekend, presumably because they use Adobe’s Flash, which doesn’t work on the Web browser Apple uses on its gadget. One was Condé Nast’s GQ, whose front page has an item promoting…its iPad app:

Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, a proud iPad owner, tells me that the GQ front page now looks okay from the browser of his new machine. Except if you try to play the video promoting the GQ iPad app, in which case you’ll get this message:

So that’s a little embarrassing. But not a big deal, really, since the effect of Apple (AAPL) and Adobe’s (ADBE) spat won’t be visible to most Web surfers. The iPad’s installed base, after all, is around 300,000.

In fact there, were only a few of reasons to have your site ready for the iPad on Saturday:

• The chance to earn corporate bragging rights.
• The chance to get on Apple’s good side and perhaps earn a spot on Apple’s “iPad ready” list. Though I know of at least one publisher that worked overtime to overhaul its site, at Apple’s prodding, and that still isn’t on the list.
• The chance to earn a big pile of advertising dollars from marketers who wanted to be associated with the iPad’s launch.

That last one is the most compelling, of course. But my understanding is that this was a pretty binary proposition. Either your site got some of money big brands were spending to be part of the launch or it got nothing.

And if you’re in the latter group, it doesn’t matter if your site becomes iPad-ready in two weeks or two months–you’re not getting in on that bonanza.

Meanwhile, some publishers are making a point of not converting their sites into iPad-friendly formats. But that’s a different story…

Tablet editions of Time and Popular Science magazines–each priced at $4.99–were among the most popular paid downloads for the iPad over the weekend. The thousands of iPad applications available so far also include editions from GQ, Outside magazine, USA Today, the New York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal.

The majority of magazines and newspapers for the iPad are downloaded through iTunes, the channel to purchase music, movies, books and other entertainment for the iPhone and iPad. The more than 125 million iTunes account holders can order iPad periodicals with just a few taps on a screen, instead of pulling out their credit cards and signing into multiple Web accounts.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Advertisers’ exposure in the iPad editions of Condé Nast titles will reflect the level of their investment in the print edition.

All advertisers in the print edition will appear similarly in the iPad’s “landscape” format, which is a replica of the print edition. A select group of advertisers who buy the most pages in that issue of the magazine will get “premium” placement in the iPad edition, meaning their ads will have added features like video and links to the Web. Those ads will appear in the apps’ “portrait” mode, the version of the magazine that includes extra functions like video and slideshows.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The Wired iPad app Condé Nast showed off this month looks great. But the chances that the publisher will give its other magazines the same treatment don’t look promising.

Condé is still creating a digital version of its tech magazine for the device. But the influential publisher says it won’t create similar iPad apps for other titles unless Apple and Adobe figure out how to work together.

Condé does plan to sell iPad-friendly versions of some of its other magazines. But they will be similar to the iPhone app the publisher has already created for its GQ title, and not the more ambitious stuff that Wired has been talking up since last fall.

In a memo the company plans to distribute internally tomorrow, Condé says it is trying two different approaches to the iPad (and tablets in general) as part of an “R&D period” that will run through October, while it figures out the best way to please readers, advertisers, etc.

But in a conversation I had with Chuck Townsend last week, Condé’s CEO was more blunt: He can’t fully embrace the Wired version, which was created with Adobe’s (ADBE) help and uses Adobe’s Flash platform, unless Apple (AAPL) embraces Flash.

Condé will have “two parallel development tracks going until the relationship between Apple and Adobe is clear,” he told me Friday.

But what about Adobe’s assurances that it’s no big deal to move the mag app it built for Wired, which is based on Flash, into a form Apple approves of? Not convincing enough, Townsend said.

I asked Townsend if he’d prefer to use the Wired model–which boasts features like integrated video, interactive ads, etc.–if Apple is okay with Flash. In that case, he said, “the answer would be an easy yes.”

Given that Apple has made its distaste for Flash a key part of the iPhone/iPod/iPad ecosystem, Condé is in a difficult position.

The magazine publisher has spent significant time and energy working with Adobe, and one of its flagship titles (“magazine of the decade,” per Adweek) has lined up behind the company. And it is indeed possible to move Flash apps to the iPhone, and presumably the iPad.

But content companies like Condé have convinced themselves that the iPad will be a huge part of their future. And this means they want Apple’s full cooperation, not just its grudging approval. For instance, there’s zero chance Apple will promote a Flash-based app in one of its ads.

The GQ app for the iPhone is pretty good, by the way, and I’m assuming it will work well on the iPad, too. But it’s a pretty straightforward transfer of the print version to digital form and lacks the bells and whistles that Wired and Adobe dreamed up.

Will anyone care? Let’s see. For now, here’s Condé’s official iPad app time table: A new version of the GQ app, tweaked to the iPad’s specs, should be available when the device launches at the end of March. After that, the company is planning similar apps for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour. The Wired app is scheduled to debut at the end of May.

And then, readers, advertisers, and everyone else can finally compare for themselves.

That’s a pretty reasonable approach, since it’s impossible to gauge the gadget’s chances based on Steve Jobs’s demo yesterday. As Walt Mossberg notes, it really is all about the software. And a lot of the iPad’s software doesn’t exist yet.

Now that Apple (AAPL) has shown off the device to the world, developers can start working on great software in earnest. But my hunch is that if we are going to see really impressive stuff, it won’t be ready when the first iPads start shipping this spring.

That’s partly because you almost never see really innovative software for new devices out of the gate. Developers need time to dream up things you can do with the new hardware, and they need time to see what users want to do with the thing.

But it’s also because the much of the iPad’s performance hinges on what media companies–the people the device was built for, in many ways–end up delivering.

Magazine executives, for instance, have big plans for the iPad. But those plans include charging customers more for a subscription than the $10 to $12 a year most people pay for magazines. If so, they’re going to have to come up with some pretty extraordinary stuff–not just swapping print for pixels, as Condé Nast’s GQ app does.

Similarly, book publishers want to charge you more to read a digital tome on the iPad than you do on Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle. That’s going to require something special, too.

Meanwhile, Apple’s plans to shake up the TV business via a subscription offering and perhaps do the same to music with a streaming offering aren’t supposed to be tethered to the iPad specifically. But if they do materialize, they’ll certainly make the gadget that much more attractive.

Steve Jobs, whom you can never accuse of underselling, says the iPad is a “magical and revolutionary device.” But that’s only going to be true if people who don’t work for Apple dream up some magical and revolutionary software. Give them a little time to deliver before you render a verdict–as Wall Street has.

I’d show you a video demo, but Wired publisher Condé Nast is keeping it under wraps for now. But not because the company plans to show it off at the Apple event.

It doesn’t.

Like just about everyone else in the media world, Condé Nast executives think they know what Steve Jobs is going to unveil, but they’re in the dark when it comes to details. The demo they showed off at an industry dinner was much more advanced than the one they showed off in November. But as beautiful and engaging as it is, the demo is still just a demo.

I should note here that the Condé guys–along with the Adobe (ADBE) team helping them–are appropriately proud of their demo. They point out that it is built on live code, as opposed to Flash movies they and other publishers have shown off in the past.

But as Adobe design manager Jeremy Clark told me last week, Condé Nast can’t build a digital magazine for an Apple tablet–or a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) tablet, for that matter–until it gets its hands on one, and it hasn’t done so yet.

Which is why when you do see the first Condé Nast products on the tablet later this spring, they are likely to be supersized editions of the GQ app it is already selling for the iPhone and iPod touch and not the more ambitious stuff Wired is working on.

Condé executives have talked to Apple (AAPL) about their intentions to build tablet-ready magazines–as have executives from Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc.–but those conversations are pretty much one-way affairs, sources tell me: The magazine guys tell the Apple guys what they’d like to do, hoping for some kind of guidance from the Apple guys. And the Apple guys listen politely, but don’t say much.

This applies to both technical stuff–the Condé guys don’t know if Adobe’s AIR platform, which they used for their demo, will work on the tablet–as well as big-picture business questions. For instance, Condé would like to sell tablet magazine subscriptions directly to consumers, without having to work through Apple’s iTunes store. And through an Apple proxy, the publisher has communicated that desire to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, I’m told. No word back, though.

Again, you can extrapolate this scenario for all but a select few media companies. Even for some that you’d expect to be on board for an Apple launch. Disney’s (DIS) ESPN unit, for instance, is sending representatives to the Wednesday event, but won’t be participating, sources tell me.

The good news for Apple’s would-be media partners: All of this should become much clearer by Wednesday afternoon.

At $2.99 a pop, and after subtracting Apple’s 30 percent fee, that’s about $39,000 in revenue for the publisher, which isn’t even enough to rehire anyone the company let go during last fall’s layoffs.

And those sales numbers are puny compared with the title’s analog reach: GQ reports average newsstand sales of more than 200,000 per issue, plus more than 600,000 paid subscribers.

But they’re enough for Condé to declare the digital magazines, designed to be consumed on iPhones and iPods, a “success out of the gate.” For now, that seems plausible for two reasons.

For starters, this is a Big Media digital product that doesn’t cut into the existing analog offering. The company isn’t exactly sure whether digital buyers cannibalized print numbers, but its hunch is that they did not, and that seems right to me.

Second, it doesn’t matter from a financial perspective. That’s because Condé has convinced advertisers to credit both sales equally. And selling digital copies via iTunes is much more lucrative than spending money to print and distribute paper copies.

Just as important: While Condé won’t say so out loud, sales of the first few GQ iPhone issues have given the company confidence that it will be able to port the app to the iPad, or whatever Apple (APPL) calls the tablet it plans to unveil next week.

The ported app won’t be as flashy as the digital demos of tabletized magazines Condé and other publishers have shown off–it’s pretty much a literal translation of the magazine into digital form–but it’s a start.

The eye-popping stuff, meanwhile, will take some time to build.

Plunk down $2.99 and you’ll  get you the January issue of the magazine, featuring a nearly naked Rhianna, for your iPhone or iPod touch.

Aside from the almost nude pop star on the cover, this one mimics GQ’s first digital issue, which it described as an experiment, in every way. Same price, same treatment of ads and content, etc. The publisher says it’s going to start putting out every issue of the magazine on iTunes going forward, though some stuff could get tweaked down the road.

Starting with the March 2010 issue, for instance, you’ll be able to buy new copies of the magazine “in app,” meaning that you won’t have to download a new app from iTunes every time a new issue comes out. GQ may also tweak pricing and/or offer a subscription instead of one-offs.

Condé says it is gearing up to put out another title in the same format, though it won’t say which one (Do you know? Drop me a line, please.) I should note that Hearst’s Esquire rolled out its first iTunes issue/app today as well. No coincidence that both publishers are starting with aspirational dude-centric titles.

This stuff doesn’t seem as sexy as the plans the publishers have for much heralded but little seen tablets that Apple (AAPL) and others are supposed to be cooking up. That’s probably in part because it’s always more fun to think about things that could exist, as opposed to ones that are already extant.

But I think this is as important, in its own way, as the tablet demos we’ve seen from Condé, Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc., Bonnier, etc. And as relevant as the “Hulu for Magazines” consortium the publishers have finally announced.

Because Condé’s iPhone app is a pretty good proxy for the stuff the magazine guys want to eventually produce. And if people are buying this one (Condé won’t release numbers yet, but says it will eventually), then that’s a hopeful sign for the more advanced stuff we’re supposed to see one day.

But Condé, like other publishers, says Apple (AAPL) won’t actually talk to the company about its plans for the device, or even acknowledge that it has plans.*

Condé’s plan, meanwhile, is to create digital versions of its magazines that will work on all the upcoming tablets, using new software from Adobe (ADBE). Those tablets aren’t actually on the market yet, but the publisher says it’s confident that we’ll soon see multiple versions of machines featuring large color touchscreens and wireless connections.

So who’s going to make those gadgets? Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend says his company is working closely with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and that it has also been communicating its plans to Apple. But Townsend made a point of saying that Apple executives themselves refuse to acknowledge that they’re actually planning a tablet: “They’re not talking to anybody openly,” he says.

Adobe is creating a publishing tool for the new format, as well as magazine-reader software that may come pre-installed on the devices or may require a download. The software company says it is working exclusively with Condé now, but will offer its tools to other publishers next year.

[Important technical point several readers have brought up: Adobe says its new reader software will run using its AIR platform, which works on multiple operating systems, including Apple's desktop system. But neither AIR nor Adobe's flash software works on Apple's iPhone, so if the new mystery device runs on that operating system, there's a problem. I'm following up with Adobe to see what it has to say. UPDATE: Here's Adobe's response.]

Condé says its work with Adobe won’t preclude the company from joining the “Hulu for magazines” storefront/distribution joint venture it has been discussing with Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc. and other publishers. “Those discussions are ongoing and important and imminent,” Townsend says.

Okay. So what will Condé’s magazines look like once the tablets appear? The publisher has been showing a demo video to advertisers, industry executives and employees, and I’m trying to convince the company to show it to the rest of the world. (UPDATE: Here’s a partial, low-quality version of the video).

But until then, you can get a sense of it by checking out the publisher’s first attempt to port a magazine to the iPhone, which was released today at the iTunes App Store.

Like the iPhone version of GQ’s December issue, Condé says its tablet magazines will feature the same content found in the print versions, including original advertising, with the ability to view pages in their original form or in formats designed specifically for the device. They will also import multimedia content, like videos, and offer the ability to synch up with social networks and other Web sites.

Condé also thinks the business model for its tablet mags will mirror that of its iPhone app. The company intends to charge readers for each title, and it plans to convince the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the magazine industry’s standards board, that its online sales are equivalent to newsstand sales. That will allow Condé to charge advertisers the same rate as for print ads.

If all of this works, it’s a dream scenario for Condé and other publishers. The magazine industry gets to keep the revenue streams its print publications generate without having to make the “analog dollars for digital pennies” discount that the Web requires. Meanwhile, Condé gets to bask in the benefits of digital–lower distribution costs, more engagement with readers.

Or put another way: Publishers hope the new devices will repair all the value destruction the Web has wrought.

But all of this assumes that consumers, who’ve shown no inclination to pay for this stuff on the Web, will be willing to pay for it once it appears on devices no one owns yet. We’ll find out soon enough.

*One possible exception is the New York Times (NYT), where editor Bill Keller refuses to talk about possible talks with Steve Jobs and company.

The publisher plans to start selling digital copies of its print titles via a yet-to-be-approved app. Condé will start with the December issue of GQ, which it will sell for $2.99 (versus a newsstand price of $4.99), but the idea is that the publisher can use the same technology to sell other issues of other magazines down the road.

Condé says the GQ digital issue will replicate the print one on a page-by-page basis, including the ads. Digital bonuses include related videos, as well as links to sites for products (clothing, music, etc.) featured in the issue.

I wasn’t able to attend Condé’s presentation this morning, so I can’t tell you how its attempt to transfer a rich glossy magazine onto a phone (or iPod touch) actually works. But for now, I’ll take the company’s word for it and assume that it’s a nice alternative to carrying around some dead trees.

The interesting question is the business model, which I think has some real potential. This doesn’t solve Condé’s core problem–its costs are too high to support its shrinking ad revenue–but it does have several things going for it.

For one, this approach reaches its potential readers where they are: I don’t want to read a magazine at my desk, and I’m far from sold on the idea of buying a specialized reader to consume it digitally. Getting it to me on my phone, which goes wherever I do, is the way to go.

It also generates some (potential) additional revenue for Condé Nast right off the bat without creating a channel conflict with its analog product line: Condé will be able to count any magazines sold via its app platform toward its audited circulation numbers, a trick that no publisher has been able to pull off with Web products so far. Meanwhile advertisers in the print publication who want to add digital links to the iPhone version will pay a premium, Condé says. And the publisher has been able to extract additional dollars from Grey Goose and Gillette, which will be “premium sponsors” of the GQ issue.

Bonus upside: Condé says the technology it has assembled for this effort should work well for future Apple (AAPL) products, like, say, its mythical tablet. “We think that the minute Apple is ready, if they ever are, to announce that they’re going forward with a tablet, that we’ll be ahead of everybody,” says Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital.

This doesn’t solve the distribution issue that Condé and other publishers have with Apple, Amazon (AMZN) and other potential digital delivery outfits: Apple, not Condé, will control the billing relationship for the app. But then again, Condé doesn’t get to interact with you when you buy a magazine at a newsstand either, so at least it’s not getting disintermediated.

The question, as always, is whether customers are willing to pay anything at all for content they’ve been getting free on the Web. I still think we’re going to end up with a small segment of people willing to pay up for specialized stuff and a very large group that are going to end up with free things of dubious value. It would be great to be proved wrong, though.