In less than ten years, physical music stores were almost completely replaced by online music sharing services and download stores like iTunes and AmazonMP3. With the advent of e-ink and e-book readers such as the Kindle, the same transition to the online realm has started to take place for books. And today we’re at the brink of the next transition of content to move into the digital realm; yes, we’re talking about print magazines.

Condé Nast, publisher of magazines including Vogue, Wired and Glamour has announced it will begin making some of its magazines available for the Apple iPad, beginning this April. The first titles to be published will be the April edition of GQ followed by Vanity Fair for June and The New Yorker and Glamour following soon after. GQ has been already available on the iPhone as an app previously. WIRED will be hitting the iPad in June.

WIRED leading the way

Condé Nast is one of the first to adopt the iPad as a magazine publishing platform. Its technology imprint WIRED has been leading the way with an enthusiastic reception of the iPad in its editorials and a very refreshing opinion in how it can change the way magazines are published. Its editor-in-chief Chris Anderson called it a ‘game changer’ in magazine publishing. A few weeks ago, WIRED already presented a demonstration version of its magazine, made in Adobe Flash, and shown on a supersized screen symbolizing the iPad. This demonstration showed the digital magazines can include special dynamic content previously deemed impossible in print. Video advertisements and moving pictures were some of the dynamic features.

The iPad runs are part of a test which will run until October of this year at least, according to an internal memo. However, if they deem successful they will most certainly continue.

Laggards and pioneers

Like with all transitions, there are pioneers and laggards. Condé Nast is very smart in embracing this technology instead of fighting it; with this stand, it can most certainly become a pioneer in digital publishing. It can lay the groundwork for how future publishers will make their magazine content available on devices like the iPad.  Most other publishers are laggards and are not nearly as far as Condé Nast in how it prioritizes its tablet strategy and already experiments with it. I mean, it is only about a month after we were actually confirmed an iPad was coming and they are already jumping on it like this. Their pioneering strategy demands respect. Publishers of the world: keep a close eye on what is happening here.

How do you see the landscape of print magazines change by the introduction of the iPad? Will print magazines die out completely and be replaced by digital more dynamic versions? Or will things not take off as much as we think and will the magazine fail on a digital device? I’d like to know what you think. Tell me in the comments!

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