I’ve been seriously waiting to switch all of my mag subscriptions from dead trees and glue to glass and bits, and it looks like it’s happening—major mag publisher Hearst is jumping on the iPad subscription train with Esquire, Popular Mechanics and O (the Oprah magazine) in July, at $2 a month each.
At least some publishers are still holding out, because going through Apple’s subscription system means giving up valuable subscriber info + 30 percent of the subscription revenues if a user signs up through the app (which, of course, they’re going to do).
So, I’m kind of pumped that this probably the beginning of the publisher plunge, but it was also basically inevitable anyway. [WSJ]
