While we’re talking about magazine apps, Tim Burrowes from Mumbrella on their decision to stop publication of their Encore tablet magazine:
…our sales team was struggling. Those in the market would listen carefully, and, if they were familiar with Encore, they’d be very complimentary. And then they would look at sister title Mumbrella, where we sometimes have more than 1,000 users on the site at a single moment, and book their ads there instead. Encore was bringing in less than $4,000 per month.
Although the conversation about the engagement levels of an immersive iPad ad versus a website medium rec is worth having, we just weren’t getting the reach.
A really honest, factual & heartfelt piece into the process of making a digital publication profitable. You can really tell they tried everything to make it work, but alas, it wasn’t to be.
Also there’s this:
By now, a further learning was dawning upon us. There wasn’t much demand for an Android edition. In the end, we never did improve on that initial 48 downloads. In our worst week, our 19th edition of the year, there were just six Android downloads. Which was a bit discouraging, to say the least.
Brutal.