Future of digital publishing: Continuous multi-platform publishing model
Oh man, what a good feeling it was in the old days to open a freshly printed magazine for the first time and read it from cover to cover. Now, while this might seem familiar to those of us, who used to buy physical copies at the newsstand around the corner, the proliferation of smart handheld devices, and the widespread availability of the internet has made buying physical copies unnecessary.
There’s no denying that internet and smart handheld gadgets are reforming our culture of ingesting content.
According to HubSpot’s research, consumption of digital media on mobile devices has climbed from 18 minutes per day in 2008 to nearly 3 hours in 2015.
The technology has matured, allowing development of sophisticated digital publishing tools. Mobile and tablet devices are plentiful, and, above all, readers recognise the benefits of digital editions in providing multimedia content, interactivity, cross-platform support, no delivery time, worldwide availability, lower prices, etc.
It’s always been hard to say goodbye to the old ways, which we have grown to love so much, but let’s face it, by and large, print magazines are losing interest.
New market, new challenges
However, with the number of publishers going digital steadily increasing, they now face a different challenge, which is keeping readers engaged and interested, so they keep coming back to their content more often. The edition or periodical-based publishing model is not the best in that regard, because the calm between publication cycles can tempt readers to look for content elsewhere.
What publishers need is something to fill that gap.
At Edition Digital we believe that a continuous style of publishing is key to building a loyal readership.
Therefore, we have introduced articles, which enable publishers to keep the same edition-based model, but also publish individual sets of content as soon as they are ready. A good mix of both will definitely keep readers continuously coming back to check what’s new, and that’s the most important thing.
Simple dragging and dropping makes creating articles with Edition Digital a very easy process. There are elements such as:
- Title,
- Subtitle,
- Story text,
- Pullquote.
All of the above are already at your disposal, so you don’t need to worry about styling too much, and can concentrate on the content instead.
On the other hand, when you want to create your own styles, you can do so by overriding the default CSS styles and even include additional Google fonts.
Speaking of content, the system also enables you to create your own library of assets, which is conveniently available at all times, so elements like videos, images, image galleries, text can be quickly dropped in without the hassle of locating and uploading every time. What’s more, articles are completely responsive so they can be read on every device.
Photo by http://www.tshirtsuperstar.com
Get ready for the future
To really make the best out of your articles and editions, all that content must be available at one place, where readers can easily pick out the content they are intrigued by and just go to town!
To that end, Edition Digital has created a nifty app, which, alongside its web counterpart, forms a continuous multi platform publishing model. And that, we believe to be the future of contemporary digital publishing!
The app itself enables readers to download their favourite content to enjoy even when there’s no internet service available. However, when online, readers are notified about new content that’s arrived, or when existing content has been updated.
Monetisation wasn’t left out, so it’s possible to set up in-app purchases of individual items and subscriptions, which readers can consume via the app or web, regardless of where the purchase was made.
Control over which editions and/or articles are published within the app is made available using the system’s intuitive user interface, where a variety of options enable quick adjustment of functional and visual features, which immediately translate to the app and its responsive web counterpart.
But, if you feel like taking complete reins over how your app will look, you can get your hands dirty with some cascading stylesheets (CSS).