Magazines and the internet

The website experience

The “Absorbing Media” research, in both its qualitative and quantitative stages, probed into the experience of using websites. While the internet has clearly made a huge impact, it is perceived as two distinct media: a communication channel (e-mail and chat rooms) and an information channel (websites).

While it is well accepted that websites have an immense array of valuable and interesting information, the survey found a widespread concern among people about the impact on them as individuals. Surfing websites is seen by many people as a rather lonely, antisocial and intense activity. They also complain that it is expensive and sometimes frustrating. Some people view websites as addictive, time-consuming and in danger of taking over their lives without firm rationing.

The web experience is not treasured in the same way as the magazine experience. Instead it is characterised by a relative lack of relationship with the medium. In response to a series of attitude statements, 45% agreed that “using the web is a lonely unsociable activity”, 34% agreed that “I feel a certain amount of stress when I use the web”, and 26% agreed “the web takes up too much time”. To the statement “I have a relationship with the web, like a friend”, 74% disagreed.

This is of course offset by the strong positives of the web. The medium is becoming an empowering revolution for consumers. With an incredible encyclopaedic knowledge available at one’s fingertips, the quest for information can become an adventure. 85% of respondents agreed with the statement that “I can find almost any information I need on the web”. The web has given individuals a sense of control. And this factor of control links back to magazines and other print media.

The web has joined print as a second major medium which allows users full control of their exposure (except for the pop-up ads). This embraces control of both what is looked at and the time spent on it.

“Absorbing Media” has shown that consumers’ experience of the web has led them to perceive the traditional media channels in a new light. In particular, respondents pointed out how they appreciate the selection, screening and mental editing which magazines offer them.

Magazines and web cross-referencing each other

The internet is like print in that it is under the control of the consumer rather than of the publisher/broadcaster. The two channels can work well together because they can cross-reference each other.

Magazines can arouse interest in topics, suggest information sources for readers to explore, and provide website addresses in articles and advertisements. The internet is such a wide open bottomless uncharted and invisible world that the editing function which magazines can provide – reviewing a topic and suggesting avenues for further exploration – can be a very valuable one. Magazines’ own websites can be a useful part of such referrals, but in most cases they won’t be the main online sources.

A new if modest piece of research illustrates one type of interaction between the channels. An American study released in November 2004 by research agencies Ipsos-Insight and Faulkner Focus [94] showed a close relationship building up between print and online advertising. The two media work together as natural companions. For example, it was found that information in print had sometimes led directly to an online search, which in turn sometimes led to purchase. Thus one respondent saw a print ad for a cell-phone plan, then went online to the advertiser’s website for further details, and finally went out to a shop and made a purchase. A symbiotic relationship was found between print and the internet.

It is clear that advertisers should, where relevant, include their online address in their print ads, and that the online advertising should consciously tie in with the print advertising. Information on the website which relates to products featured in print ads should be easy and quick to find on the site, when readers visit from the printed page.

Digital magazines and the internet

The way in which magazine advertising drives readers to advertisers’ websites is even more marked for the digital editions of magazines, because of the easy hyperlinks. Digital editions are exact reproductions of the printed magazine, but held digitally, distributed electronically, and usually read or at least scanned on the screen, with the user choosing which if any pages to print out or to store digitally. One key difference from the printed magazine is that the digital editions include many hyperlinks to websites, embedded in the editorial and in the ads, thus giving immediate accessibility to advertisers’ websites. Although only a small proportion of consumer magazines have digital editions in 2005, the trend is clearly sharply upwards.

Mosaic Media Partners and 101 Communications published in April 2005 an internet-based survey among American subscribers to digital magazines [95]. The subscribers had similar demographic profiles to their print counterparts, were happy with digital publishing formats, and became highly involved with editorial and advertising content.

The most popular of a list of features of digital editions was the ability to instantaneously link to an advertiser's website. 64% of respondents said they had linked to vendor websites directly from articles, and 43% had linked to vendor websites directly from ads.
Other popular features included the ability to search articles (55%), links to ‘white papers’ (55%), archiving digital editions or articles (37%), and the ability to send a single article or ad to a colleague (29%). 22% of digital edition subscribers said they had forwarded an ad to a colleague, while 37% said they had forwarded information about a vendor.

Sources of information about computers and digital products

Has the arrival of the internet reduced the value, to consumer PC users, of the specialised computer magazines? After all, PC users are the most internet-savvy group, by definition, so do computer magazines still have a role? Yes, they do – as shown by a survey commissioned by VNU Global Media and conducted by A C Nielsen. The 2004 study “Media Preferences of Digital Consumers” [96] interviewed almost 7,000 consumers in seven European countries including the UK. All respondents had a PC and access to the internet at home, and read a computer magazine. It examined how their information sources and media preferences had changed with the advent of the web.

The key question was “What are your most important sources for the information you need regarding PC and digital products?” The internet and computer magazines had very similar high ratings. For both media, more than 90% rated them as important. This was well ahead of all other channels, as the graph shows.

This was reinforced when respondents were asked, for each of the same 12 information channels, “would you say that, compared to five years ago, it has gained in importance, lost in importance, or not changed in importance for you?”. Only 13% said computer magazines had lost in importance while 55% said they had gained in importance.

For all other channels except the internet, a higher proportion of respondents – usually much higher – said the channel had lost in importance over the past five years. Similarly, looking to the future, when respondents were asked about the likely situation in three years time, 43% thought computer magazines would become more important than now (a figure only beaten by the internet and – marginally – email newsletters about IT) while only 12% thought the magazines would become less important (the lowest percentage for any channel except the internet).

Click on the chart to enlarge:

What this demonstrates is that the internet has not displaced magazines, even for information about computers and digital products. The new medium has come alongside computer magazines and added new attributes, but words and images printed on paper and published in magazine format still have something unique to contribute.