Magazines Trying Different Mobile Strategies

Magazines are beginning to go mobile, although they’re still experimenting with the format — from mobile magazines to WAP pages to SMS alerts to ringtones and wallpapers no-one seems really sure what will work. For example, MediaBistro goes over the market and notes that WAP pages started by Conde Nast for its magazines like Glamour and Vogue seem to have been shut down, but missed the recent launch of mobile magazines. People have been saying that the mobile internet is “one or two years away” for going on half a decade, but there are still issues with measuring audiences and porting to different devices.

There’s a lot of quotes from Scott Williams, vice president of mobile business development for Time Inc Interactive, about his experience. “Generally on all of our mobile sites the packaging [rather than the content] is different,” says Williams. “We look for unique functionality rather than unique stories. We’ll never break Britney Spears just on mobile. We’ll break it where we need to, but we’ll tell it in different ways depending on the device type…The way we tell the story is the unique attribute. [On mobile] it’s much shorter; [readers] get the bite, snack, and meal approach…We create that experience, including the packaging and editorial input on what’s most important on the go.”

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