OLD GROUND As publishers dig deep into their archives, they find that there is nothing more modern (and potentially profitable) than a good classic.
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uccessfully monetising digital is the Holy Grail of the modern publishing paradigm.
To date, the best results
in monetising digital have been achieved by
social web business companies such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram – all of whom are key players in a game of virtual one-upmanship (Google owns YouTube; Facebook owns Instagram; we’re yet to see who will acquire Twitter).
Magazines and other traditional
media had, until the advent of Apple’s game-changing iPad, lost ground to the blogosphere as consumers increasingly gathered news from their peers via tweets, Facebook, and blog feeds, or the arguably more accessible Huffington Post.
Enter the digital magazine. Until 2012, when tablet editions gained in popularity, the magazine was a bit- player in the digital world. Targeted blogs and Twitter content are successful strategies for engaging an existing reader base, but of little help in bringing in new readership.
However, with the rising rate of
iPad ownership – the first tablet was released in January 2010 – 14.8 million iPads were sold in its first year and by 2016, there will be 665 million tablets in use