Trends: Magazines enter a Digital Second Life

Forty magazine digital initiatives were announced in the third quarter of 2006, according to Magazine Publishers of America (MPA). Popular among the new initiatives were mobile networks, podcasts and video content for websites and mobile phones. While most initiatives show that magazines are going beyond the print page to reach their readers 24/7, the following digital intiatives stand out as unique:

Virtual Headquarters: Wired magazine has set up a 1-acre digitized headquarters, complete with neon-pink sliding doors and a nouveau 50 person conference room in Second Life. The company expects to use its new virtual building to let writers chat with one another and to host three or four virtual Q&A events a month with real-world as well as Second Life notables.

80 GB of Archives: The New Yorker offers a unique type of digital archive—80 years of magazine content on a limited edition hard drive with 20GB of extra space reserved for new articles from their website. The archive contains 4,164 issues of The New Yorker, dating back to 1925.

Political Blog, Online Degree: Newsweek launched a political blog called The Gaggle. It has also tied up with Kaplan University to offer an online business degree program called Kaplan University/Newsweek M.B.A

Bigger, better video: Forbes launched ForbesTraveler.com, a travel site aimed at the affluent, luxury traveler market and upgraded its video network at www.forbes.com/video to feature a larger player, program guide

Suggested Reading:

Big Media Gets a Second Life
">80 Years of a Magazine on Hard Drive
ForbesTraveler.com for Well-to-Do Demo
Magazine Digital Initiatives