by Alex Wowra
Zinio is a phenomenal niche product that focuses on magazine journalism. While I have come to find the App and digital world often to be primarily revolving around quick, easily digestible content and delivery, Zinio offers a real opportunity to the survival of long-form, in depth reporting.
Pro’s
cost
Zinio enables the consumer to choose between free articles and some for a charge. I like this option, because in order to stay competitive, long-form journalism will need some kind of funding, but by providing a free option as well, you get a fair chance to develop a sense of what you like and what intrigues you before you get forced into purchasing articles.
variety
From gender specific interests, to News, Travel, Entertainment, Lifestyle and Art, Zinio provides articles and issues all across the magazine spectrum. Even within particular categories, the App boasts a great deal of diversity. For example within the Travel you can go from big names such as National Geographic Traveler to magazines focusing on specific interests such as Backcountry.
organization and user friendliness
With diversity comes a need for organization. The App does a great job at keeping the user in control and at ease when trying to make selections, surfing through the App and exploring what’s all out there.
It is very easy to switch between one’s personal selection (My Library), the Shop and the Exploring section for free articles. Even within specific sections, the user can choose between organized subsections. For example the Sports section will offer subsections such as football, golf&tennis and boating.
It remains easy to navigate through all of these menus, categories such as new arrivals, top sellers and trending allow readers another alternative in how to make their choices.
design & interface
page look | text look |
The App looks good! Without sacrificing the organization, the App allows the user to choose between the “page” and the “text” mode. This means, the user can decide whether they want the App to display the entire magazine (or article) in a mobile friendly or in a “on-computer”-like look. The mobile friendly version is very successful at delivering the magazine feeling, as all images and texts are displayed precisely the same way they actually are in the paper magazine.
Con’s
cost
Overall, despite the free exploration option, some articles are very pricy. It seems as though it often makes more sense to purchase the entire issue of a magazine rather than just the article. I find this to be a bit of a missed opportunity in the digital sphere, as the appeal of online magazine over paper should be that you have a better capacity to have the consumer pick and choose. By pricing individual articles too high, this opportunity suffers.
loading time
The App takes a long time to load articles and sometimes seems to crash. This can be frustrating, especially when you’re waiting for a very long article to download.