Digital magazine, A foresight into the world of technology

Due to the economic importance of digital magazines, the Audit Bureau of Circulations
integrated the definition of this medium in its latest report (March 2011): a digital
magazine involves the distribution of a magazine content by electronic means; it may
be a replica (of the printable version) or a non-replica.

However, this definition is far from being updated. A digital magazine should not
be, in fact, a replica of the print magazine in PDF, as was common practice in recent
years. It should, rather, be a magazine that is, in essence, interactive and created from
scratch to a digital platform (Internet, mobile phones, private networks, iPad, or other
devices ).

As the print magazine, a digital magazine is distinguished by six key features: it
has a beginning, middle and end; it is edited and curated (has an editorial alignment, is
divided into sections previously established); it has an aesthetic treatment much more
appealing than a newspaper; it’s date-stamped (it has series of issues published in a
specific date, usually weekly, monthly or quarterly); its contents are permanent,
suffering only minimal corrections; it is periodic (created to have subsequent issues).

Following this, we can conclude that many publishers use the expression “digital
magazine” wrongly, just to characterize a site or the online presence of a print
magazine, even if they don´t have a beginning, a middle or an end or periodic issues.
Josh Gordon goes further and speaks of interactive digital magazines (2011: 9) to
rule out the simple PDF replicas. He lists three characteristics that distinguish them:

a) interactive digital magazines are designed to compete for the attention of
online readers, not print readers, so pages are formatted to be viewed on a
computer screen with larger type, contain “digital extras”, such as flash
animation, embedded video, etc.;

b) interactive digital magazines are designed for easy interaction between readers
and the magazine. For example, readers can share their thoughts, comments,
complete a survey, click to play content in the form of digital extras or click to
download additional content, register for membership, share the magazine on
social media, etc.;

c) interactive digital magazines contain ads that readers can interact with.
Thus, from the five most common types of digital magazines, i focus on the first
three regarding this article:

• digital magazines that are not based in the printed version;
• digital-only magazines;

• iPad, Android or iPhone apps of magazine editions;

• PDF replicas of print editions;

• applications for Kindle or Sony eReader.