Maghound: The Netflix of magazines
Do you really need (or want) Ski Magazine through the summer months, talking about how to keep in ski shape for the coming winter...which is eight months away? Or maybe you generally only read Cooking Light during the summer months for backyard picnic recipes?
You're in luck. Time Inc. has created MAGHOUND, a magazine service that operates much like Netflix. Instead of subscribing to particular magazine titles, you actually subscribe to a number of magazines, which you can swap out for other magazines at any time.
Getting tired of Time? Go online and schedule People to hit the following week instead. It's that easy and, importantly, the service is not merely tied to the Time Inc. portfolio of 120 magazines. It offers magazines from Conde and other competitors, too.
(Credit:
MAGHOUND)
Why did it take the magazine industry so long to come up with something like this? This strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that can help to drive more magazine subscriptions (and hence advertising and all the good things that drive revenue for struggling media/publishing companies). It might not have worked with the library of any one company's magazines, but by combining with its competitors Time Inc. may have a winner on its hands.
Give it a try and let me know what you think. The only disappointing thing is that I can't transfer existing subscriptions into the MAGHOUND service. The Atlantic, Businessweek, Ski, and others would be MAGHOUND-ified in seconds....
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
- by jimofoz February 5, 2009 8:06 AM PST
- I've been using it since January and except for an occasional glitch when revising my magazines, it works pretty good. I'm on the 7 mag a month plan. Some of the magazine pricing is strange like premium pricing (extra fee above the monthly fee) for some bimonthly magazines and especially $6.95 extra a month for People - which as a weekly is a little more understandable, but still quite high considering I get 7 separate magazines for $9.95.
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(3 Comments)The best part is being able to change month-to-month. And if you're wondering, if you have a magazine published less than 12 times a year, you can add substitutes so you still get your full allotment a month.