The Atlantic: How One Magazine Became Profitable by Going 'Digital First'
mashable.com
mashable.com
Of course digital first should be the first inclination. Succeed where the success is, not where the past has died.
Good for the Atlantic.
Content can be a lot cheaper to produce and promote if you aren't the content originator (e.g. Associated Press is literally everywhere now) but it's death by a thousand cuts more often than not for publishers that go this route.
Unless one has simply massive online traffic, the advertising model that propped up print for so long is broken online. Print is mostly free from delivering hard metrics with the exception of circulation numbers. Online, pure visits and ad impressions are never enough. Thus, an impossible slippery slope forms creating a paradox of expectations between "engagement" with vendor content and "real content."
In all reality, the "digital first" strategy is impossible for many publishers as the subscription dollars are almost free money for them. The lure of another $20 annual subscription is too great. And the growth necessary to survive, so hard.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=url%3Aycombinator.com+...
From my point of view the quality of the journalism online made me fork over money, but I don't see how "digital first" comes into this.
Personally, having been a past subscriber to the Atlantic but given up on it owing to never having time to read magazines and only being interested in a subset of the articles in a typical issue, I like being able to read interesting stories when the mood takes me rather than piling the magazines up in the unread pile and then feeling stupid when I realize I missed a really compelling article. (I often found out about articles in my unread magazines on NPR or online.)