While printed newspapers are decreasing in popularity at rapid rates, magazines have kept their popularity in print despite also seeing the creation of some innovative websites to extend their brands.

One of the main reasons mentioned for reading content online rather than in print is the cost of buying a publication. As more newspapers are charging for full access to their website, this argument for moving online is actually disappearing in the world of daily publications. However, magazines haven’t yet taken this step and perhaps for a different reason.

Unlike newspapers, periodicals like Time, Fortune and Wired are not just replicating their print on the internet, but instead are creating websites with a slightly different function. There is more constant content but it is generally shorter in length and written with less formality and perhaps less style. The sites are also about the individual stories on them, and not so much about experiencing the brand.

The printed magazines are focusing on features and repeated sections that regulars enjoy. A section might be a series of related very short articles that might not catch a reader’s interest on the web, because it needs to be read more leisurely. Features are in depth and often follow months of investigation unlike many web based stories that are written on the same day as the information is made available to the journalists.

Now we wouldn’t say that one is better than the other, just that printed magazines and their own websites are serving different functions with some overlap. But what about the cost issue mentioned earlier. Only a small number of weekly or monthly periodicals are charging for full access to their websites (separate to the issue of charging for iPad applications). Subscriptions are however a good way to reduce the cost to consumers of printed media. As the publication knows it has a certain number of dedicated readers, it can get higher advertising revenues as well as reduce the distribution costs because of low mass mailing charges.