• All Things Digital, Monday, August 16, 2010 11:13 PM

Will tablets save the magazine business? Nope. But if the industry's hopes for the iPad and its ilk pan out, digital editions could give the industry a billion-dollar boost in a few years. That's the conclusion of a new study sponsored by Next Issue Media, that's supposed to determine the industry's future, reports All Things Digital. It says iPad magazines and similar stuff will generate $3 billion in advertising and circulation revenue in 2014, assuming that the market expands beyond Apple to include Google and other competitors. But after you account for print dollars the digital versions will cannibalize, that nets out to $1.3 billion in incremental revenue.

 

If the magazine folks are lucky and/or good, they can get more out of the new technology. The study doesn't factor in new potential revenue streams, like digital ads sold at a premium. Another interesting part of the 1,800-person survey, conducted by the Oliver Wyman consulting group, is the best-case scenario it presents for publishers. Consumers, the study says, are happy to pay print prices for digital magazines.

The iPad's color and motion capabilities have created a groundswell of interest around the so-called "living magazine." But is putting print in motion a flash forward, or a flash in the pan? asks Hot Trend.  If ever the print industry needed a knight in shining armor to reverse the world's growing preference for blogs, online news and YouTube, it's now. And if any device can don the armor and play the part, the site says, it's Apple's iPad. Wired's iPad demo depicts words that change before the eye with the virtual press of a button, cars that spin with a swipe, pages that slide across the screen like they're on roller skates.

Read the whole story at All Things Digital »