I'm New -- An Editor and a Publisher

Hello everyone, my name is Rich Truesdell and I am a new iPad 2 owner. One of the reasons why I bought an iPad is that I am the founder and editor of a digital-only online magazine called Automotive Traveler.

The first thing I did when I got my iPad 2, I installed Terra full-screen browser. What an improvement over the Safari browser that's included on the iPad.

The second thing I did was to view Automotive Traveler Magazine on my iPad 2. We don't have an specific app; since we're a small publisher, we developed a viewer that presents our content on any browser-equipped device. While not perfect, since we don't use Flash to do things like flip pages, it works fine either in the included Safari browser or with the Terra browser I installed.

Right now we are giving consideration to the development of an app, but honestly, I don't see a compelling reason to offer one. But maybe some of you here can give me a reason why I should.

First off, since Automotive Traveler Magazine is free, I'm not caught up in the battles between Apple and big-time publishers about sharing of subscription revenue and subscriber data. I'll let the big boys sort out that issue. One problem I have encountered is that there were problems with all three of the apps I purchased for magazines I wanted. One took me three hours to resolve.

I recognize the limitations of a browser-based approach, the primary limitation is required inclusion of our navigation bar (but using Terra in full-screen mode does eliminate the browser navigation elements, giving more space for the presentation of each horizontally-oriented page, which mimics a two-page spread in a conventional print magazine). This is the trade off for a presentation on any browser-equipped device and I'm OK with that.

Right now I'm exploring magazine app solutions. I'd like to use something already developed, on the shelf, instead of having to develop one from scratch. I like things simple so what I am looking for is a solution that will offer me an optimized full-screen presentation and will allow a swipe function to advance pages while allowing me to embed active links and to be able to open separate video windows. Is anyone aware of an existing solution?

I've seen reports that publications have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop apps and that's not an option from us. These apps take up lots of space which is a big advantage of our browser-based approach. (You read an issue of Automotive Traveler whenever you want to. It resides on our server and our viewer is lightning fast due to the technology we employ.) Can anyone suggest a magazine in any genre, that you like, that features a simple, intuitive user interface, that you can point me to review?

And this doesn't even address the reported $30 million that News Corp spent up to the launch of highly-hyped The Daily. Does anyone here subscribe to it and if so, what do you think of it? Do you plan to pay for a subscription when all the free trials finally end for good?

I hope that anyone reading this will take a look at my Automotive Traveler project and provide feedback. i'd love to know what you like, what you think should be improved, and if you were me, the editor, what changes you would implement. Feel free to contact me directly if you would rather do that than post a message here.

Have a great weekend,

Richard Truesdell
Editorial Director, Automotive Traveler Magazine, AutomotiveTraveler.com
richt@automotivetraveler.com