NEWS ANALYSIS: ITEM

			Yesterday's Model: How Zinio Takes Content Forward into the Past
			John Blossom
			5 January 2005
SUMMARY:			A recent thirst for info on the latest cars finally persuaded me to buy a magazine subscription from Primedia via the Zinio electronic magazine reader. The chugging, oversimplistic viewing engine that manages the commercial and tech details seems no more likely to allow Primedia and others to catch up with the wave of tech-savvy readers most in a position to try the technology than Detroit was in its years of ceding automotive market dominance to companies more adept at blending art and science for consumers. Intelligently engineered content objects are the wave of the future, but molding them around technology centered on retro business models is a sure-fire waste of time.

I am a car enthusiast from way back, but a cheap one at that. Hardware depreciates, so getting more than my money's worth out of any technology that doesn't bring in money is appealing. In between my very long cycles of delayed automotive gratification I live vicariously through car magazines, flipped through at the grocery store or at the local library as time permits. I do this much less lately, though, in large part because much of the most cutting-edge information on cars tends to be found in Web discussion groups and on Web sites - though generally not magazine-sponsored Web sites. Most magazines have kept their freshest and most valued content offline, or online in diluted or delayed form to minimize its value. But when an online forum poster mentioned that their new February issue of Motor Trend had arrived with fresh info on a model that I was interested in, my motor madness compelled me to give their site a try.

Sure enough, Primedia's Motor Trend Web site did not have the information I was looking for, but it did offer a subscription signup for the Zinio-based digital edition. Twelve electronic bucks later, I was looking at the latest Zinio-based Motor Trend - the January edition, not the hot-off-the-press February edition (newsstand currency is promised). I am awaiting shipment of my new laptop PC, so in the meantime my old portable chugged along laboriously to simulate the experience of reading a magazine on a computer. This had to have been one of the most dissatisfying content consumption experiences I have ever encountered. The Zinio reader has improved somewhat since its introduction, but  clearly it's meant for the most modern technology only and still retains most of its weaknesses shared with eBook readers, offering neither the best of online content consumption capabilities nor many of the typical positive experiences of print-based publications (simple bookmarks, anyone?). Yet dozens of magazines, mostly business and technology oriented publications, have opted for this rights-protected medium. What's wrong - and right - with this picture? Here's a quick look at the pluses and minuses of Zinio-based content:

• Protecting the past does little to guarantee the future. Zinio's model works conceptually in that it creates useful rights-protected objects that can be annotated and archived locally. Great stuff for executives on the go who don't have time to grab a magazine at the airport newsstand and for a handful of Tablet PC aficionados. But with so much emphasis on maintaining print's presentation and subscription paradigms and so little emphasis on extending the power of electronic capabilities (annotated versions cannot be shared with other people, as a simple example), it's hard to imagine that Zinio's proprietary system is going to attract the interest of developers who will be able to extend the technology with complementary capabilities and content that will add inherent value to the viewing experience. Browsers are very "uncool" this year, mostly because their extensive capabilities to enrich content experiences via the widest range of content and technologies available have begun to be taken for granted, but that acceptance and flexibility has opened the door to maximum content access and set high levels of expectations for functionality amongst millions of content consumers. Given that it's being aimed at content that appeals mostly to the most technology-savvy readers, a handful of Tablet PC analog-emulating features aren't likely to spread Zinio's appeal very quickly to people still fond of paper publications.
• Publishers yet again cede aggregation power to technologists. One of the weirdest aspects of the purchasing experience is that it shifted from the Motor Trend Web site to a Zinio-branded ecommerce experience. Visit the Zinio site and you see a stable of magazines from various publishers available via the technology, similar in sales concept to the KeepMedia stable of magazine archives. In other words, publishers are onpassing key portions of the commercial and content delivery relationship to a technology vendor. Magazine publishers seem to be wedded to the "content is the water in the pipes" view of publishing, believing that editorial and artistic design prowess alone should be their focus. This makes about as much sense as letting printing press manufacturers distribute magazines. Mastering new technology is an inherent part of the publishing process and the subscriber relationship, with more of it available than ever before to savvy publishers with scale to promote their wares. Premium content publishers need to focus on using venues to cement their own value-add relationships with individuals and institutions - not to toss them to others for value-add capabilities beyond their reach.
• Chasing high-end subscribers with low-end prices could cause subscriber base problems. While the near-free distribution of electronic content certainly justifies much lower prices, it seems strange that radically discounted content is being made available first and foremost with a tool that is designed to appeal most to a very limited group of affluent people. This is going to be most problematic for consumer publications, which are likely to experience continued rapid declines of print subscriptions amongst economically-pressed middle class purchasers while they become more enamored of other electronic delivery options for content that work well with older technology. The likely winners in the race for sustainable premium content profits are those that embrace the most advanced and universal formats for delivery to establish more profitable relationships. WSJ Online opted early on to extract as much as it could for its premium online content via browsers, and established a sustainable business model very quickly - without ceding control of its enabling technology. Technology moves on, but the basic formula doesn't.

In chasing the smallest subset of the people least likely to adapt electronic content as their primary online profit targets with technology that is least adaptable to broad markets, magazine publishers are taking a timid approach to online content monetization that's likely to have similar repercussions to those being suffered by the music industry. Building downloadable content objects that are most friendly to future readers' expectations for use and reuse is they key to sustainable profitability. Anything less than that is putting chrome on yesterday's tired model - a formula that our automotive friends in Detroit are struggling mightily to undo.

- John Blossom

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