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"Want to read a wealth of magazines without spending a dime on subscriptions or one-time transactions? A website by the name of Mygazines is promising just that.\nI for one can\u2019t imagine the number of copyrights the site and/or its users have infringed upon. It must be many, no doubt. (depending on whether they\u2019re considered independent items or part of publishers\u2019 portfolios). But perhaps the concept of Mygazines itself, in some form or another, is something that will eventually become a sort of standard for the industry.\nThe way in which the website functions is quite user friendly. But even more important to note is that Mygazines\u2019s idea of freely publishing any weekly/monthly/quarterly, irrespective of the source, will resonate with people. Simply put, the consumer space is driving in the direction of a mostly pulp-less new paradigm. And if you want to see where things are headed, Mygazines is perhaps the most overt example to date.\nAfter all, subscriptions will either be acceptably inexpensive for the reader to consume, with, say, more than 9/10 lopped off the average annual mailer fee, or they will be entirely without cost to the reader other than time and the amount given for particular electronic device. Looking at what the daily news business is having to struggle with today (from subscriptions to ad-supported websites), it\u2019s safe to say that the latter option will be the likely scenario to emerge - albeit with a select few holdouts dotting the landscape that manage to make do with reader contributions.\n\nThe delivery mechanism is the reason this movement toward free, of course. That and the fact that information today doesn\u2019t play well with barriers. (Media in music and video form, as well as long-form books and perhaps some pre-eminent journals here and there, are an exception in my mind, because there\u2019s really no easy way to maintain an appreciable experience and survive on a advert-content ratio of 50/50 or worse. Music and ads can be taken together sometimes. But all the time? That I strongly doubt. The same for some video productions. And things like The New Yorker and The Virginia Quarterly Review.) For the most part, the dead-paper publishing industry long imagined to be on an interminable course no longer seems to have the wherewithal to go much further. The tangible representations of the vast majority of newspapers and magazines are slated for fairly swift elimination. That\u2019s the reality of it. Wireless, handheld technologies are only further goading the grim reaper at this point.\nNow, it should be said that Mygazines isn\u2019t the first digital magazine service to come about. There has been at least one name in operation that has delivered digital copies of subscriptions and single issues on-demand over the Web for years. Zinio is its name. I actually gave them a try some years back. The experience wasn\u2019t excellent at the time, but it wasn\u2019t terrible either. Anyway, Zinio\u2019s basic premise is convenience, but with a cost. Like with its publisher partners, it operates on a paid-for platform.\nMygazines doesn\u2019t. Sure, it will most likely have to contend with takedown notices and threats of legal action and possible destruction. (Unless it can do things like YouTube and pin any unsavory blame\u00A0 on its users\u2019 uploads.) But the way it works is free. People like free. Which means that, if anything, an actor like Zinio will look more like Mygazines than the reverse in relatively short order.\nMygazines isn\u2019t perfect. That I can say with some certainly. Some things about it could use changing. Layout could be a bit better, perhaps. But the experience offered is, I think, what readers will want a lot more of. It would naturally be too much to expect publishers to jump aboard at this point. They\u2019re more attuned to strike up opposition. Massive opposition, even. But where will the give-and-take eventually lead, do you think? In the vein of Mygazines, I suspect."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/07/19/mygazines/>