Today We Look To the Future

B&N Announces New Digital Initiative
Yesterday, Barnes & Noble issued a press release in which they announced:

". . . they will be selling magazine subscriptions in both digital and print formats. BN.com will sell subscriptions to over 1,000 magazine titles, available in both digital and print formats, at prices up to ninety percent off newsstand cover prices. Digital subscriptions will be available within minutes of purchase for viewing on desktops and laptops. In addition, more than 12,000 back issues of hundreds of magazine titles will be available digitally for purchase as single copies."

Go here to read the release.

Time to Redefine the Role of Print?
Coincidentally, on Monday, Frank Anton, the outgoing chair of American Business Media (a trade association for business information companies) had this to say about magazines:

“If the magazines published two or three years from now aren’t different, we’re in trouble. “The current magazine model won’t take us into the next five years, let alone the next 100 years.”

Go here to read the story in Folio.

Freeconomics: The Dawn of a New Consumer Era??
I recently re-posted an article from June of last year about Chris Anderson here.

Yesterday's Guardian had an interview with Anderson talking about his new economic model:

"The traditional model is of giving 1% of goods away as samples in order to sell 99% of the product; on the web, you can give 99% away as free samples to sell 1%."

Go here to read the Guardian article.