Canadian Magazine Publishers - State of the 'App'

摘要

This paper is an analysis of print based Canadian consumer magazines, studying a selection of titles, their equivalent digital issues, and overall website architecture. It investigates how publishers are currently integrating a variety of digital platforms, and interactive approaches. Overall, the use of interactive elements in digital editorial content is relatively low, appearing in less than half of the issues. Video is leveraged in just over a third of these interactive examples. The use of interactivity in advertisements is significantly lower. In addition, the magazines' websites are not configured to provide a high level of usability and support for interactivity on mobile devices. The sites generally rate as both slow and not mobile 'friendly'. As well, the sites do not appear to be taking steps to address the possible use of ad blocking technologies. This study forms a useful benchmark for how Canadian publishers are currently leveraging digital infrastructure. It highlights how publishers today may be focusing their efforts on less popular devices and platforms, 'native apps' for tablets and the iOS, while their readers are migrating to the use of Internet browsers on smartphones.