Publisher Partners with TouchPad to sell Magazine Subscriptions
The magazine industry initially had high hopes for a partnership with Apple's iPad, but those hopes were dashed when it turned out that Apple was unwilling to give publishers acceptable sales terms. Last week, however, Time Inc finally found a workable subscription agreement with another partner, Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad tablet.
Time is planning to sell magazine subscriptions to some of its leading titles, including Time, Sports Illustrated and People via the tablet that debuts this summer. It has also just rolled out an all-access version on Sports Illustrated in Google's Android Market where it will sell print-digital bundles. It is an important point that HP is planning to give Time Inc subscriber data, which is something that Apple was unwilling to do. This data is essential to publishers in order to secure renewals and cross sell to their customers.