• by January 26, 2007

Viv, a new women’s health and wellness magazine, is a slickly designed and packaged digital play that represents a major development in online publishing. The glossy, which launched last month, targets women ages 35 and up with a variety of health and lifestyle-oriented content. Its most unique feature is that it’s downloadable from the Web and must be viewed via a Zinio reader.

The Zinio tool enables readers to easily browse and interact with pages, and advertisers to build more interactivity into their ads. For example, a page on which Audemars Piguet jewelers appears has an embedded QuickTime spot. Other links activated in-page slide shows. So far, advertisers include luxury goods marketers and cosmetics brands.

Viv is backed by David Gilmour, the founder of Fiji Water; Doug Carlson, who was also of Fiji, is CEO; and Anne Russell, formerly of Shape, serves as editor-in-chief. Barbara Moses is the publisher of the fledgling magazine. Getting traditional advertisers to buy into a paperless, downloadable magazine “was a tough sell,” says Moses. “They confused ‘digital magazine’ with an online magazine.” It remains to be seen whether advertisers will flock to the title.