‘Hulu for magazines’ comes to the iPad

Back in April, Next Issue Media, the consortium made up of big names such as Conde Nast, Hearst, Time and News Corp. and dubbed the “Hulu for magazines,” debuted an “all you can read” digital subscription model. You could pay a flat monthly fee and get all the magazines you want delivered digitally to your tablet. But there was one small problem: It was only available for some Android tablets. Now the company is finally bringing the service to the iPad, and many industry watchers are applauding the move. “Magazine fans, rejoice: Next Issue Media, probably the easiest and most economical way for you to read your favorite titles, is now available on the iPad,” proclaimed TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha. CNET’s Rafe Needleman wrote a similarly enthusiastic review of the service’s move to the iPad. “Before a similar venture gave us Hulu, I wouldn’t have thought that this kind of joint operation was possible, but here it is: probably the smartest way to bring print publications to digital devices,” he wrote. “Next Issue isn’t only a smart business, it’s a very solid product that delivers quality content.”

Nevertheless, some offered up a word of warning. Time Techland’s Harry McCracken noted that although the service might help users discover some good journalism in publications they would otherwise ignore, few people overall are signing on for multiple digital magazine subscriptions. “If you do most of your reading on the web, where there’s an infinite amount of great stuff available for free—including some of the content in these magazines—$120 (Next Issue’s $9.99 a month fee) is almost certainly going to sound pricey, and $180 ($14.99 a month) only more so,” he explained. Next Issue gives you access to 34 titles of less-than-weekly frequency for $120 per year plus access to another five weeklies for $180 per year—much less than the price of those separately. But GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram argued that Next Issue’s distribution model doesn’t fit in with the way more people are consuming content: via social channels and aggregators. “For them, the newsstand is already an anachronism,” he wrote.

• Next Issue’s ‘Hulu for Magazines’ Hits the iPad (Time Techland)

• Next Issue, magazines and paving media cow paths (GigaOm)

• Netflix for Magazines Comes to iPad (Ad Age)

• Next Issue brings 39 all-you-can-read magazines to iPad (paidContent)

• Next Issue Media, The Netflix For Magazines, Comes To The iPad (TechCrunch)

• Next Issue brings its all-you-can-read magazine store to the iPad, plans start at $10 a month (Engadget)

• How Next Issue can rescue magazine publishing (CNET News)

• Next Issue Media bringing all-you-can-read subscriptions to iOS (ZDNet)