Spin Digital and MySpace have teamed up to put Spin online as a digital magazine, not just a companion site. The interactive reading experience, powered by Texterity, offers links on the magazine’s pages leading to MySpace Music profiles for artists’ information and to the iTunes music store for music downloads. The first 12 issues of the magazine will be available on myspace.com/spinmagazine for free and provide readers with audio samples and exclusive video footage, in addition to the editorial content. Since the soft launch, Spin president Tom Hartle boasts Spin Digital has received “over a quarter of a million page views in the first week alone.”

LAT: Spin attributes a January jump in print subscriptions to the soft launch. Hartle: “The idea is to bring the print product to the demographically desirable crowd of younger Web surfers who hang out at MySpace. We want to extend the reach and the reading time (of the monthly edition).”

Staci adds: Spin plans to let the genie out of the bottle for 12 months and then try to stuff her back in, making the interactive version available only to print subscribers. It’s a risky idea and unlikely to work the way Hartle hopes.