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Magazines with DVDs

Magazines distribute DVDs - how to make it better
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Many magazines - especially IT magazines - distribute DVDs. Here how to provide magazine readers the best of the online and physical worlds

First, start by copying Apple and package DVD content like mobile apps. Offer users a PC application to explore, review, install, run and update 'DVD apps' onto their devices (a combination of Apple's 'App Store' and 'Launchpad') . Example 'DVD apps' could be free Linux documentation (new DVDs could carry updates), free stock photos, Open Street Map content, article archives, and even virtual machines bundled with QEMU or VMWare Player. Let users rate and review DVD apps. Put app archives online and publish an index (with the ratings). If hosting gets prohibitive, have subscribers help out by publishing a preconfigured 'BitTorrent app' and running a tracker. :-)

Next, fully integrate subscriber devices with your content. For example, let magazine articles contain printed QR codes, which readers scan using a mobile app. The mobile app is paired with the PC application and signals it to start playing video from the DVD. A 'Edit Source' QR code could even launche a Linux VM app, with an Eclipse window open and ready with code from the article.

Finally, license content from other publications and become a 'Content Store'. Leverage your size and physical media delivery to source content (including DRM-ed content) at prices not available to single subscribers. For instance, an IT magazine could be supplemented by articles from Java Developers Journal, Game Developer Magazine, the ACM Digital Library, O'Reilly publications... Eventually, start creating custom DVDs (or Blu-ray discs, or SD cards) with content tailored to individual subscribers.

sonam, Oct 06 2012

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       This idea seems distressingly rational.
MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 06 2012
  

       a bit all-over-the-place too.   

       So you've got DVD's issued with magazines: baked, I used to pick up MaximumPC which always had a CD (currently a DVD I'm sure) inside with stuff on it: utilities, freeware and demos of commercial games and proggies, etc.   

       Ratings for that stuff is generally available as well, though generally not inclusive of the demo version.
FlyingToaster, Oct 06 2012
  

       //distressingly rational// - talking of magazines [MaxwellBuchanan] did I see a quotation from yourself in this week's New Scientist magazine in a piece about helpful Microbes on Mars?
zen_tom, Oct 06 2012
  

       //a quotation from yourself in this week's New Scientist// Ah, well spotted - that was from my altered ego, who claims to be a professional scientist. I'd pay him no heed - he's notoriously unreliable.
MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 07 2012
  

       @bellauk65, from what I know about QR codes, they have nowhere like the information density you said. Its more like 24 bytes than 24 KB... enough to hold a magazine's ISSN, page number, and possibly section or paragraph identifier... but not much more.   

       @Flying Toaster: yes, a bit over the place, especially the BitTorrent bit .. but I tend to agree with @MaxwellBuchanan's evaluation ;-). This post was done just before I sent in a similar letter to editor of APC magazine, who're thinking of phasing out their DVDs in favor of online content (http://apcmag.com/dvdpoll)   

       @MaxwellBuchanan: Thanks, :D. BTW, is your Twitter account @MaxwellBuchanan? (Sounds like you.) And is it hijacked? (The last two posts do not.)
sonam, Oct 09 2012
  
      
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