 
Do you know how many thousands of tress are cut down each year to
produce paper for your favourite newspapers and magazines? True, most
newsprint has a percentage of recycled material and the newsprint
industry sources trees mostly from sustainable forests, but the truth is
that a vast quantity of paper is used to print books, magazines and
newspapers.
And magazines and newspapers add to the Carbon footprint in other
ways. If you order a magazine from the US or the UK, it has to be
airmailed. That contributes to environmental problems even in a minute
way. And we are not even talking about postal costs here.
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The texterity
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I know what you are thinking already: The Web. Yes, almost all
leading magazines (and newspapers) in the world are already on the Web.
The most visible advantage is that you only need a connection to the
Internet. Some magazines have fairly comprehensive sites on the Net,
with full stories from their print editions and plus web-exclusive
content. Just check out a site like time.com or newscientist.com and you
will realise that you almost do not have to read or subscribe to, the
print edition.
But there are some magazine sites that do not offer much in terms of
editorial content. Their sole purpose is acting as a payment gateway for
print subscriptions.
 In
the end, there is nothing like reading a magazine as it is - text,
photos and all. Turning a magazine page is sheer delight, because you do
not what is coming next (even if the contents page tells you, there are
still discoveries to be made).
Fortunately, there is a solution. It is called a Digital Magazine. In
other words, it is a digital reproduction of an entire magazine, exactly
similar to the print edition. And you can even turn the pages, just as
with the physical product. In case you want to print an article or save
it to your hard disk, it takes just once click.
The biggest advantage of digital magazines is that they are paperless
and thus environmentally friendly. It takes just about eight minutes to
download around 200 pages to your hard drive or pen drive. Thus there is
no waiting for the postman.
And subscriptions are cheap compared to the print version - around
US$ 10 for 12 issues or even less, as the publisher does not have to
bear distribution and postal costs.
But what’s the use of a digital magazine if it does not take
advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the Internet? Most digital
magazines feature embedded web links, videos, podcasts, interactive
content. These are nicely integrated with the print edition’s interface
- when a sentence in the printed page says ‘you can download our podcast
at this address’, all you do is point the cursor there to download the
podcast.
The best place on the web to look for digital magazines is
www.zinio.com, which is just about the most feature packed digital
magazine platform on the Web. It has the largest selection of digimags
on the Net, with many free samples. Unlike many other digimag platforms,
it has a dedicated full screen offline reader, so that you can download
the mag and read it at leisure.
  Moreover,
Zinio has a separate website (goreadgreem.com) to promote ‘green
reading’ where you can order a 12-month subscription to any magazine of
your choice absolutely free. Another major player in the best is
Texerity, which also offers a download option, but the books are
displayed in a reader that operates from within your browser. Unlike
Zinio, it offers several back issues when you subscribe.
The best magazine on this platform is Orion, from the Orion
Society.But the most exciting prospect at the moment is the
British-based Ceros system (www.ceros.com). Check out Ceros magazines
such as iMotor, Photo 360, Waitrose Live, Virgin Electric, Tennishead,
iGizmo, BBC Magazines, FHM, Overseas Living and Evo.
These are fully interactive, with videos, audio spots, pop-up fact
boxes, changing pictures and all. On iMotor, if you want to check the
colour of a car, just ‘paint’ the car in that colour. If you want to
hear the engine start, do that. Ceros is surely the future of digital
magazines.
But will digital magazines ever spell the death of print versions? We
still like to see things in print, feel the paper and even take a good
mag to the beach or to the bed. My guess is that print and digital will
co-exist for the foreseeable future.
- Pramod
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