One of the most visible changes in Apple’s recent iOS 5 update was Newsstand, which puts all your magazine and newspaper subscriptions in one not-easily-ignorable folder. How’s that working out?
Conde Nast might be reaping the most rewards at the moment as magazine publishing house saw a 268 percent increase in digital subscription sales since Newsstand rolled out with iOS 5 on October 12.
That’s not a bad hike, obviously, but imagine what would happen if Conde Nast cut the subscription prices down to something reasonable that reflects the nonexistent printing and negligible distribution costs of the digital format.
What’s a 268 percent increase from “five”?
Subscription price has nothing to do with cost of printing and mailing.
Printing and distribution have far less to do with the cost of subscription than the degree of advertiser subsidization.
Conde Nast makes HUGE bucks from all those glossy fashion and makeup ads in their print products. That’s what pays for all that content.
That revenue is paltry on the digital side. Plus, those IT costs are anything BUT negligible.
I realize this is all obvious to most people, but since Paul just doesn’t seem to get it…
What if iTunes took less than a 40% cut of music downloads that reflect the nonexistent printing and negligible distribution costs?
I don’t get Newsstand for the iPhone. I subscribed to the NYT because it was free, and I think I might actually be willing pay to subscribe to something else, if it was interesting enough, but so far the options are terrible: there appear to be 15 options — only fifteen!? — and one of them is The Oklahoman (it’s free, by the way). I’m sure it’s much more exciting for the iPad, but, I don’t own one of those.
Oh yeah, and, Apple insists that Newsstand is so exciting and important that I can’t delete it, nor can I hide it in my Junk folder with the other shit they won’t let me delete (stock prices, that worthless weather app, etc). Not cool.
I’m with #5, except that iTunes’s absurdly overpriced (and absolutely mandatory) commission on magazines is 30%, not 30%.
@#7
Oops, that’s what I get for not reading the Preview. 30%, not 40%.
You can get the NYT on Kindle for a subscription.
Bet they’ll sell a lot too.
@ 6, you can make a folder and call it something like “never used apps,” and put the stuff you don’t like there. Not perfect, but they don’t have to just take up space on your desktop.
@10 – Nope, they won’t let you move the Newsstand app into a folder.
@11: Confirmed, it was one of the first things I tried to do after upgrading.