Richard Branson’s Virgin Group beat rival News Corp. to the punch this week by unleashing the first digital publication made exclusively for Apple’s iPad. Branson joined forces with U.K. publisher Seven Squared and Anthony Noguera, former editor of Arena, to produce Project, which Virgin says “looks like a style magazine and acts like a web site.”
The publication will update itself “minute by minute at times” to provide a month of content with one download. The app is available free, with issues selling for $2.99 per month.
News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has reportedly been working since last May, just after the release of the iPad tablet, to launch The Daily, which will have a newspaper format but no print edition or web site. The Daily’s expected debut will be in January, selling for 99 cents per day or $4.25 for a monthly subscription. The Daily will have a staff of 100 based in New York, Women’s Wear Daily reported last month.
Dirty Magazine
The premiere of Project, featuring Oscar-winner and Tron: Legacy star Jeff Bridges on the cover, features some pioneering interactivity — virtual “dirt” covering an article about farming that can be “wiped” off the touchscreen. The cover animation, previewed on Virgin’s web site, shows Bridges flickering electronically as if displayed on a faulty computer.
Branson, a flamboyant British entrepreneur, prides himself on diversity, running an airline, music business, wireless communications service, and, soon, the world’s first commercial space travel service. The aptly named Project will test iPad users’ appetite for specialized content. They can already access other magazines or newspapers through their web sites or via apps that reformat the content for the iPad’s screen.
History suggests digital magazines are still an unknown quantity.
“Turn back the clock about 10 years — remember eZines for the PC?” asked ABI Research mobile-devices analyst Jeff Orr….