Gilbane Research Report - Digital Magazine Editions - (Page 57) Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Best Practice Cases From the beginning, they have sold print and digital editions separately. For a modest monthly fee, subscribers receive both editions and access to the archives. With the growing popularity of community- and context-sensitive search, they have added more features to their Web sites. Results Readers like the variety of methods for accessing newspaper content. Advertisers appreciate the reader activity data that are available for digital editions. The Archives are popular for researching topics whose coverage spans several years. The archiving capability allows them to keep their legacy content active and is a very popular research tool for readers. One-third of their advertisers are willing to take digital tear sheets in lieu of the traditional print editions. The cost savings are significant. The East Valley Tribune’s digital circulation is now more than 10% of their overall circulation. Lessons Learned Different views of content serve different purposes. The print and digital replica editions have strong appeal to readers who like the structure and layout of a traditional newspaper and enjoy the experience of browsing through the entire issue. The digital edition has the additional benefits of rich media, links to interesting content or products, and the capability to easily share an article with a friend or colleague. They are experimenting with special editions to appeal to younger readers. While Web purists extol the look and feel of a Web page and the importance of community, Freedom’s research indicated that many young readers liked the organization of the digital replica edition and would use both if given the chance. Gilbane Group Conclusions Traditional print newspaper readership is declining. To attract more readers, newspapers are expanding their digital activities and delivering their content to new devices such as digital phones and Kindles. While community-generated content is a step in the right direction, traditional authored content needs to have more external links to allow readers to further explore a topic by reading other credible authoritative articles with differing viewpoints. Freedom is taking an incremental approach to archiving by adding each new edition to archives that started several years ago. Archives become more valuable as the number of years covered increases. Adding additional years of pdf files is not terribly difficult or expensive and adds value to the overall Web experience. ©2008 Gilbane Group, Inc. 57 http://gilbane.com http://gilbane.com
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