Digital Publishing Opportunities for Print Publishers

Print Newspapers and Magazine Publishers Have Innovative Ideas All Around Us

Seek out the examples of both success and failure for digital publishing initiatives.

Ten years ago, many of us in the digital publishing space could see that print publishers had a bright future online. Digital opportunity was theirs to lose. After all, they had the greatest advantage possible in their tradition communication channels, audience loyalty, and the ability to create multimedia content. Unfortunately, the idea of investing in the web and anything online was pioneered by few and many of those early digital publishing entrepreneurs failed to survive the early adopter growth phase. Five years ago the market was mature for a logical multi-channel publishing strategy. Niche publishers knew the they must face the fact that their publishing business must change. And the publishing business model did change, it’s now digital. And even if the print channel is and will continue to be ‘part’ of that publishing model, the future is digital. And digital has brought new opportunities for revenue and reach.

We are starting to see devices and audiences organize around methods of digital consumption that really make it easy to stay connected. I admit to installing every new Android Market or iTunes App Store apps for reading content that I can get. I hope upon each new install to be inspired by a unique UX or some logical UI elements that make it easy to both read, share, and save. With periodicals (or any published content in this modern era) the notification capabilities are also very important. But beyond the intricacies of apps, the publication website itself or new innovative brand extension offer a very simple method of reaching the existing or new audiences.

If your publishing business isn’t yet investing in the next digital publishing business future of your publication, start taking note of the innovations evolving and the digital publishing strategy around us. The Evolution of Newspaper Innovation #Infographic provides some ideas. And more ideas will come based on doing user focused research. Keep it simple, make it valuable, keep telling a story, and may your digital publishing future be bright and profitable.