There is something about an all-you-can-eat buffet that consumers like. Its that one price that enables you to pick and choose from a wide selection to consume from repeatedly. Cable subscriptions have been doing it for a while although the constant rise in their monthly rates have led to subscriber cord cutting. Phone companies too with unlimited local calls and cell companies too with their all you can use minutes. So it is now time for the print media to offer a similar aggregated offering.
"Digital magazine joint venture Next Issue Media is finally available for the iPad, three months after it launched for Android. With the app, users can read popular magazines like People, Vogue, the New Yorker and Real Simple for a flat monthly fee." For heavy magazine readers eager to cut costs by switching to digital, this could bring instant savings to the household. For light readers, it may be just the right price point to encourage adding a digital subscription to get some wonderful content from well known magazine brands. Titles are being offered by Conde Nast, Hearst, Time Inc., and Meredith. A full list is available within the article.
For me, I haven't yet gotten much out of Flipboard and would find this kind of deal worth subscribing for my iPad. I do find it unusual that the individual companies haven't already tried this type of model just within their own list of titles; still, I believe that the larger the choice, the easier it will be to market and gain consumers to subscribe. Of course, how it affects print subscription losses will need to be measured to assure that a time frame to adapt to a shift in preference can be effectively budgeted. At the end of the day, this model sounds like a winner.
