Video Use Doubles, But Top 50 Magazines Slower To Adopt Web 2.0 Features
By Robert Andrews - Thu 06 Sep 2007 08:52 AM PST
The number of U.S. magazines (among the top 50 by circulation) offering video features nearly doubled from 34 percent in 2006 to 60 percent in 2007, according to a Bivings Group analysis of sites operated by the top 50 titles (report pdf, data). Other highlights:-
-- Registration: A few more magazines have switched to requiring user registration before visitors can read articles, up to 42 percent from 38 percent.
-- Mobile: 34 percent of magazine sites have custom content for mobile devices, up from 14 percent last year.
-- RSS: While 64 percent of the sites offer RSS feeds, none of them place adverts in their feed. They could be missing out on a massive opportunity - if consumers are reading the mag via RSS, then they’re not seeing anything at all that could monetize the publication.
-- Bookmarking: The number of sites offering bookmarking tools grew from 14 percent to 36 percent, with 30 percent offering links to off-site tools like del.icio.us.
Comparing results with findings of a similar analysis it conducted of newspaper sites, Bivings said magazines “still lag significantly in their use of the web” and are “slower to adopt Web 2.0”, possibly because there is less of an impetus to change.
