On paidContent, Gregory Galant suggests a way that the magazine industry could help itself stay afloat that does not involve making an iPad app. He points out that in its focus on digital, the industry seems to be ignoring certain other aspects of the overall magazine customer service experience—most notably the subscription process. Galant reports that his own experience resubscribing to a magazine involved being billed on an actual physical invoice that came in the mail. “In Japan you can buy a coke from a vending machine with your phone,” Galant points out. “The magazine industry’s still mailing invoices?”...

PaidContent has a brief report on IDG Connect statistics suggesting that iPad owners are buying less physical media. The survey shows that 72% of worldwide professionals polled are buying fewer newspapers, 70% are buying fewer books, and 49% are buying fewer DVDs since owning an iPad. The biggest areas of decline for newspapers are Asia, with 90% of polled buying fewer, and the Middle East, with 80% buying fewer. This represents a bit of a double-whammy for ad-funded media like newspapers and magazines—not only are they getting fewer sales, but they’re also losing the print ad views of the...

This past week, the Kindle iOS app received an update. We did mention it when it happened, but I think a couple of the features in that update are important enough to go into in detail. First of all, the software can now read PDF files. I tried it out with a TV manual downloaded from the website of manufacturer I support in my day job, and it worked pretty well, including drop-down access to the table of contents. Of course, there are many other ways to read PDFs on iOS by now, including GoodReader, iBooks, Stanza, and Safari...

A recent survey by the Association of Magazine Publishers has turned up some interesting results. It surveyed 1,009 adult readers of e-magazines on their use habits and features they would like to see. Of those surveyed, 90% said they read as much or more magazine content as before they had a tablet. 76% of them said they preferred newsstand-style subscription centers, like Zinio or Apple’s Newsstand, and 55% said they like to be able to read back issues. But the intriguing part has to do with in-app purchase features. 70% of those surveyed wanted to be able...

Our sister blog Gadgetell has a brief piece on the new version of the Nook for Android app, which notably adds the Nook Newsstand and personalized recommendations to the app for any Android device running version 2.1 or later—including smartphones. And speaking of Newsstand apps, ReadWriteWeb looks at the Kindle Fire Newsstand’s app as one of Amazon’s secret weapons in the war against the iPad. Offering over 400 full-color publications,  and including a free three-month trial of various Condé Nast magazines for those who subscribe before March 1, 2012, the app will compete with Apple’s own Newsstand. The Apple...

CNet has an interesting, fairly long interview with Josh Quittner, who was formerly the director of Time Inc.’s digital magazine strategy as well as Time.com’s editorial chief before quitting to take a job as editorial director for Flipboard. Quittner is a veteran tech journalist and editor, which makes it all the more fascinating he would take a position at such a young startup. Quittner explains that he was drawn to Flipboard by the changes that are taking place in the context of magazines. Flipboard represents a chance to break out of the traditional one-size-fits-all template magazines have used...

I’ve already mentioned the deals Flipboard has been cutting with magazines to carry their content, but the people behind the iPad social media reading app seem not to be content to rest on their laurels. Flipboard Chairman and CEO Mike McCue has said the company hopes to enter into agreements to carry movies and episodes of TV shows via its platform. McCue plans to get started on this project by the end of the year. McCue also plans to create an iPhone/iPod Touch version within a few weeks. (I have scant hope it will work on my old 1st-generation...

From the Los Angeles Times: Does Vogue magazine have a digital archive in the works -- one would stretch all the way back to its original 1892 issue? Rumors say that's exactly what the long-lived fashion magazine is up to. The blog Fashionista reads the tea leaves: Vogue editor Anna Wintour attending the Webbys in June, accepting her magazine's "People's Voice" award by saying, "Sometimes, geeks can be chic." (Webby Award winners must give five-word speeches). Vogue publisher Susan Plagemann telling AdWeek that the magazine will be rolling out a new Web property in December. She declined to specify what that might be. A "reliable...

AOL has just launched a new iPad app, Editions, which serves up a custom daily "magazine" of content from both its own sites and others (but mostly its own). Like Zite, Flipboard, Pulse, Taptu, Hitpad and a slew of other apps, you can customize the type of content you see, although if you don't like the default suggestions you'll have to connect your social network accounts to it to generate new topics. Editions seems to fall somewhere between Flipboard and The Daily, borrowing a lot of the visual style of the former but packaging itself as a once-a-day digital publication...

The magazine "Fantasy & Science Fiction," which has been around for over 60 years, is trying out a new way to sell copies: it's going to start giving away the nonfiction sections, plus one fiction story, from each issue for free through the Kindle Store, while offering a paid subscription (at $1/month) for the full issue. In some ways, this is sort of like using the Kindle Store as an email list marketing tool—get users to sign up for the free stuff, then remind them regularly that there's new content for sale. But another analogue may be the freemium...

Mashable's Lauren Indvik recently shadowed the men and women behind Sports Illustrated and published a case study of their workflow. There are some interesting lessons here for other publishers who are developing a digital strategy. Indvik writes: ...web and print are divided mainly by article length: the web is for shorter, newsier hits and print is a repository for long-form journalism. Quality is consistent largely because most of Sports Illustrated‘s staff touch every extension of the brand. Nearly all the writers (95%) produce content for both the web and print, filing short news pieces for the web while building out longer,...

The Nieman Journalism Lab is carrying an interview with Scott Dadich, vice president of digital magazine development for Condé Nast. Dadich discusses the importance of having magazines on the iPad, the controversy over whether to work directly with Apple or try to circumvent the app store, and how faithful an e-magazine adaptation should be to the print version. Where some publishers balk at the 30% bite Apple takes out of their revenue, or Apple’s reluctance to share the sort of subscriber information they need to sell advertising, Dadich thinks that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. He feels that media...