Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Buyer’s Guide
In addition to clickable URLs, most digital editions offer publishers the ability to embed
rich media content, including audio, video, and animation. This could be extra editorial
content or advertising.
Another important aspect of the user interface to consider is security: whether it
requires username/password access, and whether you want to prevent subscribers from
making unauthorized copies of digital editions. The question of password access is, of
course, closely related to whether you charge for your digital edition, give it away to
print subscribers, etc.; more on that below.
Digital rights management (DRM) capabilities, which inhibit unauthorized copying,
should be considered in relation to the business objectives for your digital edition. For
example, if you want to maximize exposure for your brand or advertisers, DRM may not
be a good idea, but if you want to maximize subscriber revenue and protect valuable
intellectual property, DRM might make sense.
Advertising
Although some publishers treat digital editions as “value adds” for their advertisers and
do not charge extra for digital edition ads, other publishers treat them as opportunities
for incremental ad revenue. Digital editions can offer several features that are salable as
ad or sponsorship inventory, such as:
� Clickable links in ads
� Real estate above or below pages
� Tabs that lead users to special pages
� Gatefold pages
� Bellybands (digital equivalents of paper ribbons wrapped around the magazine)
� Toolbar sponsorship (logo on digital edition toolbar)
In addition, some digital edition providers can support e-catalog functionality, in which
a user can click on a product description and get an order form or shopping cart. Some
vendors implement full e-commerce functionality for e-catalogs, while others will
simply generate order information to be processed offline.
Tracking and Reporting
A major portion of the value that a digital edition offers to publishers is the ability to
track how users interact with it. Many publishers are not used to the idea that they can
track users’ interactions with their publications in great detail; therefore, it’s important
to choose a digital edition vendor that offers flexibility in tracking and reporting.
Many digital edition providers offer Web sites with usage reports. Some typical reports
offered include:
� Traffic analysis, e.g., unique visitors per month.
� Page view data: how many users viewed which pages.
� Time spent reading the digital edition.
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