BN.com Selling Digital Magazine Subscriptions and Back Issues

Mac Slocum
May 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Barnes & Noble is now selling print and digital magazine subscriptions through its Web site. According to a B&N press release, the service contains more than 1,000 magazine titles and 12,000 back issues. Digital editions are handled by Zinio, the company that also manages B&N's "See Inside" book preview tool. M2 Media Group is managing print subscription fulfillment.

Commenting on B&N's magazine move, MG Siegler from VentureBeat questions the utility of digital magazine subscriptions:

The real question here is if people will want to read magazines online? The market this would seem to cater to, people like myself, [who] already spend so much time in front of a computer screen during the day that spending an hour or so more to read a magazine might seem like too much. However, transferring a digital magazine copy to an e-book reader like the Kindle might make [sense], but seeing as Amazon.com, a chief BN.com competitor, makes the Kindle, that probably won’t happen.

(Via Shelf Awareness)

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