For some, that answer - surprisingly - may be yes. According to Jeanniey Mullen, CMO of the magazine's distributor, Zinio, the cost was not as expensive as you may think - it was “not even $100,000," she said. But $100 grand to create one copy of an online magazine? That's far beyond the reach of many micro-publishers. And yet, for them too, the iPad introduces the possibility of reaching a wider audience than ever before.
According to the Times article, the VIVmag iPad version will continue to feature interactive content and video in every issue. For them, it's less of a problem to do so than it would be for other publishers. Although the costs of hiring models, filming against a greenscreen and editing video may seem exorbitant, VIVmag was already an “all digital" magazine from the start. Creating their digital content costs approximately the same as creating a normal print magazine - they just employ different people to do the digital version of the analog jobs. Much of the magazine is templated, too, allowing the company to reuse the same basic structures to display new content in later issues.
VIVmag received quite a bit of press - almost as much as Wired did for their so-called “iPad app." But Wired's app isn't iPad-ready just yet. Built with Adobe AIR technology, the app won't run on the iPad in its current state due to Apple's policies. While both of these high-end creations demonstrate the potential for all-digital magazines on the new form factor of the tablet PC, incredible tablet-based magazines like these won't be limited to publishers with big budgets.
Magazine with Music Downloads and More
Take, for example, Digital America, an interactive literary and culture magazine made especially for the tablet experience. Like VIVmag, Digital America will also mix in video with their other content. In fact, they'll offer articles, graphics, videos and music plus extra, downloadable content included in the per issue price.
Part of the magazine's content lineup for their first issue will include exclusive author interviews, a featured musician with playable music tracks, a filmmaker interview and their award-winning short, a featured animator with exclusive commentary, a playable cartoon, five pieces of chosen fiction-reading from American writers and “bonus extras."
From the interactive table of contents, accessible from anywhere in the magazine, you can navigate through the available sections. A quick layout view lets you hop from page to page and you can choose to scan the magazine in landscape mode, too, if desired.
