DIGITAL INNOVAT IN PUBLISHING I
f you regularly pick up a print edition of your favourite magazine, it is only too likely that you’ve experienced the urge to preview other publications on the shelf whilst pondering your purchase.
However, magazine fans are often the victim of the penetrating eye of a shop assistant, which forces you to quickly pick your regular magazine, pay and leave.
This urge to sample the vast array of choice that we are presented with by the publishing world before buying still hasn’t been addressed in the physical world – yet one particular entrepreneur has taken the problem and expanded the idea online. Michael Philippe is the co- founder of lekiosk, a virtual magazine shop that has received international success by enabling people to browse, sample and purchase titles from a rotating 3D virtual newsagent – or kiosk.
And the figures speak for themselves. The app has already been downloaded 700,000 times, was on 1 in 4 iPads in France and ultimately became the highest grossing iPad app in the region. Michael and the team at lekiosk are now taking on the UK and have already secured deals with the likes of the BBC and Condé Nast, who have placed their magazine titles on the platform with huge success. So how did the lekiosk journey begin?
“I was wondering why there wasn’t a digital platform that has print editions all in one space at a good offer, so an iTunes for magazines”
“I grew up in Paris and after graduating I secured an internship in New York working in a mutual fund” says Michael. “I would read French magazines in PDF form
16 entrepreneurcountry Michael Philippe
online and when I tried to read another French title in the same way I went to their website and found that you couldn’t access their magazine online.
“I was just wondering why this didn’t exist, a digital platform that has all of their print editions in one space at a good offer, so an iTunes for magazines essentially.
“I called my brother and my close friend Robyn, we discussed the idea and we realised very quickly that a shift had already begun in this industry with a new device, the e-reader. We also spoke about the plastic logic solution that had been released at the time; it was the first reading tablet and was similar to a Kindle. We then realised that we should build a magazine platform so that just like in the music industry with the iPod, when the tablet or e-reader became successful a platform for magazines would be successful also.
When did the concept for lekiosk start to get underway and
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