How the New Media Works: Print vs. Online

(Target publication: http://www.nma.co.uk/)

Business to business article by Raminta Paukstyte

World’s leading fashion Website Style.com has just launched the print magazine this Monday, 31st of Oct. That could be seen as a risky step in this “networkable” society we live in. Many concerns have been expressed during the last years, especially after digital products, such as iPad appeared. Print is consistently predicted being in crisis. How online publishers challenge the “offline” market?  Is the print dead?

What “online market” really matters?


Social media is becoming more and more significant; it is the tool for many of new organisations and businesses to start and expand their branding campaigns. Kristina Vasilieva, who started as a model and today she is also a photographer, a graphic designer, an executive beauty editor for faceonmagazine.com, High End retoucher and a digital artist, who also owns KVmedia Studio explained, how the New Media allows succeeding and how she attempts to benefit from that: “Personally I don’t think that any other media form could help to achieve this level of authority I have now. I literally don't have enough time in my day unless it will be reasonably beneficial to myself and my businesses.”

Taking into account career prospects, while print magazines reduce jobs, online websites keep expanding them. “I used to be a magazine writer, but when the winds started to shift, I ventured into the virtual world”, an ex feature writer, now a blogger, Ronnie Citron-Fink wrote for Care2.com. There is immediacy, indeed, to write about things and explore them in the most interactive and accessible way, the “offline” dimension cannot offer. 

Where the “offline” market overcomes the new media platforms


Information is definitely more accessible online; however it is not always reliable. “Everyone is opening up online magazines and blogs, but not everyone can be a reliable publisher”, Adam Danyal, the branding consultant and the founder and director of Superstarmagazine.com said.
Similarly, difficulty remains in finding quality contents. Everyone is writing the same content that can simply be copied across hundreds of websites, so that the strongest story may not always be read. Results we get while searching for a story on Web are categorized depending not only on its relevance; e marketing is the leading stage for that (Google AdWords, for instance). There is information overload, especially in the entertainment sector, and it cannot be controlled or regulated, as it would be in print publications. 

Is the print dying? 

The “battery life” for digital devises such as the iPad and other digital products is still not good enough. It is first of all an imaginary dimension, so that it cannot fully compensate the hard copy of a magazine. Additionally, advertisers still pay much more for print editions than they would ever pay for an online magazine. Having these factors in mind, a very recent Style.com decision to launch a brand new print magazine could be possibly seen not as challenging as respectful. It can make a difference.

Adam Danyal had also something to add to this: “I have also always wanted to launch a print version. I think it creates a new dimension into reaching an “offline” market that is only used to a physical product and to tap into the 'offline' advertising market.” Print will always be there, even if it is a declining market. “Women still prefer having a physical copy of the magazine to read on the train or when travelling”, Adam Danyal said. 


Looking to the future


Writing for print requires a continuous investment in time and greater analysis of the regular reader needs. Major companies (such as Apple, iPad) are pushing this further and no doubt publishers are, and, nevertheless will be, taking even more advantage of that.

There are more considerations of how future magazines can transform. The major new trend we are seeing, especially in fashion industry, is the publishing of content as it happens (such a fashion show) on online magazines such as Now Fashion or reporting about it live on Twitter. This might expand into other sectors, such as music and film too. A very likely prediction to happen is that print will become more exclusive and we will see a rise in luxury magazines that are targeted at a niche market. Ideally, subscriptions will be forgotten once there is an established market leader that delivers quality content, instantaneously on whichever device we are using.