Research into the Digital Magazine Market

Task 1. Pros and Cons of Digital Magazines:

Pros:

• You can access the internet almost anywhere, therefore the readers don't have to physically go to pick it up. This means it can be reached on a global scale.
• It's much more cheaper for the publisher as they do not require any printing costs.
• They feature advertisement that appeals to you, as it registers things that you've recently/often searched.
• It can look slightly more appealing, as there may be animation or movement on the pages.
• It allows the readers to interact, as there'll most likely be hyperlinks to go onto another page.
• The publishing company can now get a profit from advertisements that pay to be on their website.
• It's eco-friendly; it doesn't use resources.
• This could also give people more jobs as it's a new industry such as: editors, designers, web-coders etc.
• Also, with digital magazines, you only need one copy rather than several.

Cons:

• It requires some sort of connectivity, which may be hard to reach at times.
• You must have battery power in order to reach these.
• As digital magazines become more detailed and graphic, this may cause a longer loading process.
• There's naturally a smaller target audience, because not everyone carries a portable device in which you can read these kind of magazines.
• They also don't have the same value as printable copies.
• It can be harder to read, which can add confusion to some people.

Pros and Cons of Print Magazines:

Pros:

• They're taken more seriously by sources, as it is more reliable.
• you don't have to wait for anything to load, or require any internet.
• To get to another article, you have to flick through other articles, therefore not many articles will go to waste as most of them will be read.
• Print is much more superior to online because they're sold in shops, where the majority of people will come across it.
• It's very efficient as it is portable and can be used anywhere, for example airplanes.

Cons:

•  Each magazine aims to a particular target audience, whereas online can reach all.
• It is much more costly because of the printing.
• It's not Eco-friendly, as it uses huge amounts of paper.
• They can ruin easily, from water, tears, etc...They become old quickly.

Task 2. Analysis of 2 Digital Magazines:

Daily Mail Online - www.dailymail.co.uk

I've analysed the 'Daily Mail Online' and straight away from looking at the front page, there's a huge amount of text accompanied by a headlining picture. The reason being, is because it's based on a news paper. The colours are kept quite simple, the website consist of blue headlining titles, black writing and a white background. This website is kept simple because the articles are based on serious topics, therefore it is important that they don't stray away from the importance of the messages. Navigation on this website is quite simple with sub-titles at the top of the page, which then turns the font red when the cursor is over it. The use of this allows the highlighted text to become the main focus, among the large amount of surrounding writing. The way 'Daily Mail' is set out perhaps reflects their publisher 'DMG Media'. Animation is kept simple on this magazine, as the only uses of animation are: underlines under text, highlights on the text and boxes. The font on the website is all kept the same throughout. Personally I think the layout of this website is quite messy, which is probably a result of the large amounts of writing. However, at the same time is is quite easy to navigate yourself though, the reason being because everything is pretty much simply right there in front of you, and everything is there with just a click. Furthermore, the larger fonts on the headlines do make it clearer for the reader to see what the article is about, which does stand out among all the writing on the page. When you click on a specific article, the page layout becomes much clearer, with the simple article headline, bullet points stating the main parts of the story, an illustration to represent the headline, and the writing of the article itself. Further down into the article, there are other stories that may be related to the previous one, therefore it goes onto showing excess information about things that the reader could possibly be interested in. These include more pictures, information about other people, however it gets slightly less news related and slightly more based on the entertainment side. Another thing I discovered about the navigation, is when you're on a specific article you can share the whole article itself on social media, and  you can then hover the mouse over any of the pictures in the article and share the picture on several social media sites. This perhaps shows that the daily mail are also interested at targeting an audience who are slightly more involved in mainstream media. I'd say on the specific chosen article itself, the navigation becomes slightly more complex in terms of advertising other social media networks in order for sharing links (which then creates a pop up page). Speaking for myself I find the navigation and layout easy to get through, however I don't find it that appealing to look at, though the colours are kept simple as well as the font, I don't think it looks very neat, despite things being sectioned into categories, it still appears to be scattered.

Guitar Player - www.guitarplayer.com
The first thing that is shown on the screen when entering this online magazine is a popup which is extremely off putting. The front page is full of images with titles on them, to me it is much more appealing to look at, as it isn't filled with large amounts of text. This is probably purely on the fact that it is an entertainment magazine. The colours on this site consist of black, white, red and grey, and it is kept the same throughout. Throughout this whole magazine, it is based purely on music and things based around it. The animation and navigation on this website quite detailed. The text underlines when you hover over it, Key titles at the top are highlighted red and open up a drop tab with Sub-titles underneath, and there's a sliding toolbar which stops instantly as there's anything over it.