• New York Observer, Wednesday, November 4, 2009 10:34 PM

A trio of under-30 former Wall Street analysts -- Ryan Klenovich, Jian Chai, and Steve DeWald -- plan to save the magazine business with a Web site called Maggwire.com. The free aggregate site will add a premium service that lets users subscribe to a "channel" where they can get premium magazine content from a series of relevant magazines.

"The pricing has to be inexpensive to get users to adopt this in mass numbers," says Klenovich. "That's how iTunes became so successful at first-because the pricing was simple," at 99 cents apiece for most songs, he says. Maggwire's magazine channel would cost about $2 a month, with an additional 99 cents per magazine if users want to add extra titles to the package. The publishers would keep 75% of the profit and Maggwire would get the rest.

The threesome left Deutsche Bank in July to start working on the site full time. They raised a round of financing from family, friends and colleagues and are currently meeting with "major players" in the publishing industry. So far most magazines are staying hush-hush about a possible partnership.

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