Free Stuff: Your Favorite Magazines Gone Digital
You can order all your favorite magazines in digital format.
Do you get excited every time a new issue of your favorite green, fashion or cooking magazine comes in the mail? What if you could have it first, before it hits newsstands, or be able to read it anywhere you had access to the Internet? Yes, we would be excited too.
Websites like QMags.com and Zinio.com provide just that – digital subscriptions to all the magazines normally only available in print. Ordering online subscriptions has a number of benefits, including reducing the impact that the industry has on our natural resources.
So, What’s the Damage?
“Twelve billion magazines are printed on paper in the United States each year. Of all those titles you see on newsstands around this country, only about 30 percent of them actually sell. Those that don’t sell — the remaining 70 percent — are shipped to landfills or incinerators,” Rich Maggiotto, Zinio’s CEO, told TodayShow.com. “All in all, the industry has a massive carbon footprint — in this country alone, it has been estimated that they’re responsible for the emission of 13 billion pounds of greenhouse gases annually.”
Also, according to Co-Op America, the pulp and paper industry is the single largest consumer of water used in industrial activities and is the third greatest industrial greenhouse gas emitter, after the chemical and steel industries.”
Why Digital?
By ordering digital magazines, you do not create waste or incur the carbon footprint required to print and ship these magazines. There are also some pluses to ordering digital magazines that you can’t get with paper versions. According to Maggiotto, you can gain:
- Interactivity – When your static pages actually come to life
- Immediate delivery – You will get your issue before it even hits newsstands
- Options – Global selection from thousands of titles around the world
- “Searchability” – You can search inside any of your magazines for a keyword or phrase
- Highlighting – Bookmarking and “post-it”-like features
- Read Anytime – 24/7 access to your personal archives and the portability to read anywhere
Where’s the Free Stuff?
If you’re not entirely sold on the digital magazine trend, Zinio is providing a free, one-year digital subscription to the magazine of your choice so you can try it out. The Read Green Initiative is easy to sign up for, and over 200 titles are available. Happy reading!
- "Paper Production and Consumption Facts" Co-op America http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/woodwise/consumers/stats/index.cfm.
- Belger, Marisa. "‘Read green’ and tame the paper tiger" Todayshow.com http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27519463/.
Charlie
posted on December 24th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Be careful on what “free” means. I signed up with Zinio to get a free magazine, and now I’m getting email porn spam from Zinio. I like their system, pretty easy to use, just wish they wouldn’t spam me.
http://reallybademail.blogspot.com/2008/12/winter-sale-warm-up-now-with-playboys.html
Who knows what else they do with my email address and name. I like the idea of getting free magazines, and the digital e-mags are a great idea, but be aware of who you work with.
I don’t know much about qmags but I tried to use their system and it didn’t really work – very slow and poor quality.
Other e-mag sites you might look at are:
– Coverleaf (www.coverleaf.com) which has lots of good magazines like Fastcompany, Better Homes and Gardens, More, etc. Nice search feature, you can basically sit and read without registering, nice and quick to use. You should check this site out.
– Nxtstand (http://www.nxtbook.com/news/newsstand.php) which has brochures, catalogs and some magazines. A little clunky to use, had to wait for loading every time I open a magazine and a page. Hard to read the text.
There are other sites for newspapers like press display (www.pressdisplay.com), but to be honest, if I want to read a newspaper I just go to the website and get the news…