All Things Digital
Peter Kafka reports that digital newsstand provider Zinio is letting Sporting News offer a subscription option for its iPad edition — a feature that many of the magazine’s competitors don’t offer. The Sporting News app itself is free, but a single daily issue is priced at $0.99 and a monthly subscription costs $2.99.
Sports Illustrated planned to launch its app with a subscription option in June, but Apple rejected its attempt.
Kafka writes that because Zinio has its own e-commerce infrastructure and is apparently able to offer subscriptions outside the confines of Apple’s more restrictive iTunes store environment. To build on that advantage, Zinio has started launching stand-alone content apps — including Sporting News — outside its eponymous digital newsstand.
The trade-off, Kafka points out, is that Zinio’s magazine apps are largely PDF-like replicas of the print magazines they represent:
