TAKEAWAY: Readers of the French Vogue magazine can now read it on their iPhones. I predict that we will see more magazines, not just newsmagazines, developing smartphone editions.
It’s all about the smartphone and how we will continue to get more of the information we crave right on that small screen in the palm of our hands.
Now it’s the turn of the French Vogue to get the very photo driven of the fashion icon to the iPhone. As of last week, readers of Vogue can find a dedicated version for iPhone.
“This version creates a new editorial and visual experience and, I hope, will seduce new comers,” says Delphine Royant, publisher of the French Vogue.
With this iPhone version, users will read the magazine in traditional PDF version, or, if they prefer, in HTML.
Delphine is very proud of the magazine team’s accomplishment and what it could mean to attract a new audience:
It was a priority for us to be the first magazine on mobile, demonstrating once again our capacity to stay a step ahead. We have invested a lot of energy and resources in launching an innovative double HTML/PDF version of the magazine, designed specifically for iPhone with technological development carried out completely in-house. We are very proud of this amazing new app and we believe that our younger readership particularly – 50% of our readers are 35 years old – will be the perfect target for this new way of mobile reading.
Those smartphones and the shape of things to come
I predict that we will see more magazines, not just newsmagazines, developing smartphone editions, and not just putting PDFs of their print editions (which is a good start), but developing storytelling, visuals and content that relates to the full potential of what smartphones continue to do in our daily lives.
The so called “traditional journalism” would have been born on a smartphone if such a platform had existed. Those of us trained as journalists, know the importance that immediacy, localness and accessibility have always had.
No platform combines those factors as efficiently as the smartphone, a platform where the appeal to so many of our senses is vastly rich.
Editor/Publisher Delphine Royant agrees:
25% of our audience on Vogue.fr comes from mobile devices. Our strategy is to provide readers with the means to follow the Vogue Paris brand wherever they are, at any time, thanks to the social media platforms on which Vogue Paris is the most-followed media brand in France – Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest. Our challenge, was to create an experience faithful to the Vogue Paris values and high standards.
For now, the French Vogue, a publication that distinguishes itself for its photography and visual allure, shows us what’s possible.
Take a look here (in English)
The link to the app on the App Store is here:
https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/vogue-magazine-france-iphone/id661150926
Pages we like
The current cover from the New Yorker magazine celebrates the death of the Defense of Marriage Act with an illustration of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie snuggling on a sofa while watching the landmark Supreme Court ruling on TV.
And, of course, the cover has already been declared controversial.
For more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/30/new-yorker-bert-ernie-cover-backlash-homophobia_n_3522949.html?ir=Media
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/06/new-yorker-cover-bert-ernie-gay-marriage.html