UPDATE: There seem to be a few issues with this service and I’m investigating now. Until then, I would suggest NOT ordering subscriptions through Zinio. I’ll update further as I get more information.
UPDATE 2: Things are working fine now, my magazines are arriving and I once again recommend the service.
——————–
Do you read a lot of motorcycle magazines like Cycle World? I bet you do, probably quite a few car magazines, too, maybe Popular Mechanics, and who knows what else. I do, too, and I subscribe to more than a few but I ran across this website, Zinio.com, a little bit ago and it just stopped me in my tracks. I’m not sure when this started, but you can subscribe to a huge number of magazines that you normally read, get them at big discounts and they are delivered to your computer. OK, sounds neat, but it’s better than you think.
When you subscribe to a magazine, you want to read it right now, but the first thing you usually see is, “First issue will arrive in 6 to 8 weeks.” Look, I want to read it NOW, not two months from now, well, with Zinio, you subscribe and download right now. Whatever issue is current, you get right away, future issues you get the day they are published, way before they show up at your local news stand. They never get lost in the mail, either, and they are always in perfect condition, no ripped covers or wet magazines on a rainy day.
You read them on the downloadable reader and they display exactly like the magazine you would buy in the store, pages turn just like the real magazine, but all of the hyperlinks in the magazine work so you can check out whatever they are talking about in an article or an ad. You can search through the text, make electronic notes, highlight text, very, very cool.
I’ve already subscribed to a bunch of the mags they offer and I can tell you they work as advertised. If you have a widescreen laptop like I do, they’re perfect but they are easy to move around and page through no matter what. If you’re not sure, you can download a sample issue of some of the mags and see how it works. The other thing I noticed is they are constantly adding more magazines and you can even suggest your own favorites if they don’t offer them yet. Give it a try. I highly recommend it.
hoyt says
I need to check this out….from the sounds of things I can now start my own indexing (card catalog) to be able to easily refer back to an article months/years from now.
Its amazing the material available in the monthly mags over time.
Dodgy says
This could get expensive…
And the other thing is that I’m not going to wait 2-3 months for my mags to get here by seamail, and always be 2-3 months out of date!
Cool…
aaron says
still bloody expensive for the specialty mags (racecar engineering – $70 a year! at 120 pages an issue that’s almost 5 cents a page – and you’re paying for the ads, too!) and one offs … also some mags cost the same for digital form as for real ones! (cycle world)
I thought the logistics of printing, binding, and shipping these were the bulk of costs?
hopefully this will come down in price as it gains in popularity, in the meantime i’ve found one I may try – superbikes (uk) – at $25 it’s a bargin! out of about 8 I was interested in, this was the only one to really tempt me …
kneeslider says
Some are at big discounts, some none at all. To me the convenience and speed are worth a lot. Also, I’m not sure what the process is for making the digital version but there has to be some work involved of some sort so even though the printing, binding, etc. are gone, there are still some costs. Some of those mags are going to be high cost because they don’t have high circulation and they probably figure the subscribers can afford a bit more anyway. Look at something like Jane’s Defence Weekly. In any case, it’s cheaper than single issues, faster delivery and ready for text search.