Zinio Magazine Reader

April 22, 2005 10:58 AM

A recently purchased iBook comes with Zinio, an application that allows for the onscreen reading of print magazines. I like the concept, and the interface is decent, but their selection is paltry and it all seems a bit too pricey. Still, I might be willing to give it a go. Does anyone use the service regularly? What do you think of it? Is there a comparable service out there that might be better?

I currently subscribe to the New Yorker and Scientific American, neither of which are offered by Zinio. But I'd gladly pay to have them delivered electronically (I'm not sure how zinio renders publications, but they've done a good job of replicating the feel of a magazine). I have piles of back issues laying about my apartment - it's hard for me to get rid of them even though I know I probably won't check them out later.

So having an electronic archive of my subscriptions at my fingertips is quite appealing.

posted by aladfar to computers & internet (4 comments total)

I like it. They recently upgraded the interface to 3.0 (for PC, not sure about Mac) which has made it run faster. About a year ago I got on a list to get a few free mags every month so haven't paid for anything but if you like computer and tech mags (and don't mind reading them on a computer), I think it's pretty good.

Also, once I got started receiving online mags, I started getting quite a few email offers to receive one year free trial subscriptions to proper print mags as well.
posted by gfrobe at 11:13 AM on April 22, 2005

I've been checking out Newsstand, who offer a similar service. I'm interested in Barrons, which I used to read every week back in New York but is prohibitively expensive in London (4.25 Sterling a copy - ouch!!).

Unfortunately, Mac support doesn't seem to be a priority for Newsstand. They've recently launched a Mac version of their service named iBrowse which uses your web browser to display media.

The only downside is currently only a handful of publications allow their content to be distributed via this new channel compared to hundreds or thousands via the PC version.

Thanks for the tip on Zinio - I didn't know about them before. Just too bad they don't offer Barrons.
posted by Mutant at 7:33 AM on April 23, 2005

"Onscreen reading of print magazines"?

In what way can you not do that on the Web using HTML?

We should not be supporting in any way the failed and arse-backward attempt to replicate the print medium online. BusinessWeek's print-magazine layout belongs in print, not on the Web.

If you disagree, answer the following question: What does "Continued on page 34" mean when reading a "magazine" onscreen? Where are the pages?
posted by joeclark at 11:24 AM on April 24, 2005

Zinio mags are DRM'd PDFs.

I use Zinio for PC Mag and a couple of other pubs, with pretty good results.

I like:

Real hyperlinks. Click, you go to the web page. No typing URLs.
Easy archiving.
Carrying the mag and reading it anywhere (on my Tablet PC).

I don't like:

That only the Zinio application can read the mags. I'd like to just use Acrobat.
Sometimes printing works, sometimes it doesn't.
Zinio needlessly eats a lot of clocks. I'm not sure why, but it's probably got something to do with the pretty page-flipping and zooming animations. I turn them off.

Overall, it's pretty good for an early market effort at updating an old format.

Once again, I'm on a PC here. Sorry, it's a Windows world.
posted by SlyBevel at 12:08 PM on April 25, 2005