Magazines Fall in Love with iPhone Apps, Hang on For Dear Life
A friend waits in a doctor’s office and notices that everyone around him is tap-tap-tapping away at their iPhone and completely ignoring the table full of magazines, some of which were delivered only a day earlier.
This scene is a nightmare for magazine editors, who are ever-worried about remaining relevant and carving out a digital presence for their titles. But unfortunately for them iPhone apps do not relevance (nor money!) make. At least not yet.
Seventeen and Runner’s World are the latest magazines to roll-out iPhone apps, Mediabistro reported yesterday. Seventeen’s “Fashion Finder” app, the first from a Hearst title, will give readers a way to locate consumer items from the magazine in stores nearby. The Runner’s World app, the Nike-sponsored “Runner’s World Shoe Shop,” is suprisingly similar to Seventeen‘s (both are powered by digital shopping service NearbyNow’s database), allowing users to locate stores to purchase shoes and gear mentioned in the magazine. Both are free for download.
The NearbyNow database appears to be an incredibly powerful tool, although its utility and immediacy must destroy the fun of shopping for some. But we can see how these apps would be useful if we needed a pair of running shoes or a “darling pink top” in an emergency. From Min:
Seventeen’s developer NearbyNow has partnered with retailers for a number of years to give consumers visibility into the actual store inventories at local shopping malls. The Fashion Finder app leverages this database to query nearby stores about the actual availability of an item in specific sizes and colors. When we searched a darling pink top and asked about availability, the closest Bloomingdale’s answered the request within minutes via SMS.
The Runner’s World app is a departure from the precedent set by fellow Rodale titles Men’s Health and Women’s Health, whose apps aren’t free for download (they cost $1.99) and provide work-out programs and assistance, not shopping help. Furthermore, the Health apps have a clearer revenue model: Users purchase additional work-out series a la carte (about 99 cents each).
Men’s Health editor-in-chief David Zinczenko underscored the financial possibilities of that iPhone apps hold for magazines in a press release (via FBNY):
Men’s Health is leading the industry by adapting our print products to emerging digital platforms … While other magazines have offered iPhone applications before, we are the first to embrace Apple’s In-App purchase function, and in doing so, we are the first to deviate from these traditional marketing methods. In essence, we are creating a distribution channel within the iPhone for our content.
These new apps join an earlier wave of programs from other titles who were quick to establish a presence on the iPhone, even without clear ideas about how to generate revenue or even synthesize content in a way that would attract users.
To name a few (all of which are free to download): Wired‘s iPhone app, launched at the end of 2008, gives readers access to the title’s complete database of product reviews. Epicurious — the online home of Bon Appétit and Gourmet — brings a database of over 25,000 recipes to readers through its app, which was featured as a NY Times Gadget Blog “App of the Week.” OK! magazine’s app is little more than an RSS feed of the magazine’s content, and Car and Driver‘s app is just a bunch of pictures of really fast cars. We guess there’s something to be said for putting one’s flag down in the world of iPhone apps.
Still, none of these apps have a resounding answer to the doctor’s office dilemma, although the new breed of apps might bring in some much-needed cash. That said, if people are choosing to tap on their iPhones instead of pick up a magazine, there’s probably no amount of databasing and innovation that can fool them into somehow doing both.
Round-up of more magazine iPhone apps here.
Images courtesy of Mediabistro and Idio.
