Online Journalism News

'Paid-for-content will die a death in the mainstream', says idiomag's co-founder

Idiomag, the now two year old online magazine, was born out of two technologically minded men wanting to read the music articles they wanted, without needing to buy six different magazines in WHSmith.

Co-founder, Andrew Davies, tells Journalism.co.uk that he 'wanted to apply this concept of personalisation to the consumer [magazine] industry'. 

They went from a small operation publishing select articles, to what they are today: a flash looking online magazine with a strong presence on the social networks.

They offer a widget which allows users to view what their friends are reading, which can be embedded in external sites.

The company has just launched a new version, and are celebrating content partnerships with larger publishers such as Rolling Stone and Billboard.

"Really the biggest change for us was when the Facebook platform was launched and there were more social possibilities with the web," Davies says.

Did they not feel threatened by the advent of social networks? No, Davies says. "They're platforms for us. We're not trying to be social networks in the slightest, but social networks can help us hugely by distributing the content that we have."

"We've got instalments on Facebook and Bebo, and lots of homepages like iGoogle, My Yahoo and Netvibes. There's a huge amount of value from that.

"We can  say what your friends are reading on idiomag and that adds a lot more data for the whole process of personalisation," he explains. 

"When we started out two years ago people were holding onto their content and weren't seeing value of link for reward rather than payment for reward", Davies says. 

"Paid [for] content will die a death in the mainstream, and we're getting closer. People are [now] starting to realise that. 

"That's how we're able to do these kind of [licensing] deals now."

Were they ahead of the curve? "We assumed this is where it was going – it's what the music industry has done," he says. 

"It's got to push the [product] price down to zero […] Content will be something cut and pasted around the web.

"As long as content creators can derive some value from it, their value will generally come from something different than subscriptions and licensing arrangements.

"That's something people are in varying stages of accepting," he adds. 

And for idiomag? Davies says that what we're seeing now is only the beginning.

"The technology we're using is applicable to any content vertical." He says that what we see now is 'a starting point'.

Davies foresees the format rolling out in the next few months to gaming and film, but what the company has really got their sights on is female consumer magazine territory.

"The big opportunities for us are in women's lifestyle and fashion where there are huge audiences online and publishers aren't doing that many interesting things," he says.

For now, idiomag is working on 'restructuring the system' behind the magazine, to pave the way for alternative delivery methods, like mobile.

According to Davies, it will go way beyond what he calls the 'flash magazine interface' that is seen today.

Tags (click tag to find related articles; click icon for feed):
magazine | social media | music site | idiomag | andrew davies | music magazine |

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