Digital Magazines, are you with me?

Jakarta - Sept 16 2011

I love to read, and one of my reading item is magazine, from women category to science and tech to cycling magazine, you name it (i think i have it, haha).

And i know i'm not the only one who love to read too. i bet you're one of them since ... well currently you're reading my writing. :p

Anyway, for me, my biggest problem is how to safe all of the books and magazine in my house. Well, especially magazine, every month i subscribe like... more than 5 different mags, in a year i can have more than 60 magazines pile up. So after a few years... well, you do the counting.

And since i'm so called hoarder, i just can't let go of my old mags, coz maybe someday i wanna re-read them (yeah, rite). I still keep my 2005 magazines which still look like new, so how can i throw them away :(.

Actually there is a simple solution for this, which is digital magazine. at first, i was so thrilled since the magazines from other country came soooo cheap compared to the printed one sold in the book store. For instance, Cosmopolitan magazine, i can subscribe for 1 year (12 magz) and pay only about $15, while the printed one with that much money, i can only have 1 magz. But i find it is kinda annoying to read magazine from my notebook or computer. i want to read my magazine while i'm relaxing, on my bed ready to sleep or just killing time after exhausted hours in front of notebook @office. So, I still prefer printed magazine.

But since last year, where mobile tablet start booming, digital magazine vendor starts to bloom in many countries, including Indonesia. They develop apps for tablet, so people can purchase and read it easily through their tablet or smartphone. Me? I read it from my tablet (my Ipad to be exact :D) and my iPhone (kinda hard though, the wording and picture are very small if i read it from here hahaha).

Anyway,

I've downloaded and use several apps for digital magazine and compared them. since I'm an Indonesian, most apps i compared are the one which sell Indonesian Magazine. Feel free to comment.

Details	Zinio	Scoop	Wayang Force	Gramedia Lite	Detikios
Pre Purchased
Website	zinio.com	catchthescoop.com/	wayangforce.com	gramedia-majalah.com	N/A
Reader (OS Platform)	Windows, Mac, Linux	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Reader (Mobile Platform)	Android, iOS (iPad and iPhone)	iOS (iPad, iPhone)	iOS (iPad)	iOS (iPad)	iOS (iPad)
Website	Can be use for navigating magazines and purchases.	N/A	Can be use for navigating magazines and purchases	N/A	N/A
Magazine Country/continent of origin list	Asia, Australia, Europe, USA	China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore	Indonesia	Indonesia	Indonesia
Language	25 Different Language, English by default	English	Bahasa and English	Bahasa	Bahasa
List of Magazine	Art, Automotive, Entertainment, Home, Lifestyle, Men, news, Science and tech, Sports, Travel, Women	Art, Automotive, Entertainment, Home, Lifestyle, Men, news, Science and tech, Sports, Travel, Women, Kids and Teens	Art, Automotive, Entertainment, Home, Lifestyle, Men, News, Science and Tech, Sports, Women, Travel, Kids and Teens	Gramedia Group's Magazine (Art, Automotive, Entertainment, Home, Lifestyle, Men, News, Science and tech, Sports, Travel, Women, Kids)	Detik+
Other item	Ebook (Business, Children, Culinary, Fiction, Interests, Lifestyle, NonFiction, Tect, Textbook, Travel)	Ebook (Non Fiction)	Comic, Newspaper, Ebook (Text Book, Novel)	N/A	Ebook(Non Fiction)
Payment	Credit Card, AppleID(iOS)	AppleID (iOS)	AppleID(iOS), Top up through BCA	AppleID(iOS)	(currently still Free for all item)
Item Purchased	Delivered Directly to platforms attached	Delivered Directly to platforms attached	Waiting time more than 1 day before it's delivered to platform. And hard to download it
Sync	Syncs seamlesssly within platforms	Can't sync purchased item between different gadgets (i.e. iPhone and iPad)	can't sync purchased item between platforms (Website and iOS).	N/A	N/A
After Sales Service	Fast reply (between 1-2 days)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Purchase item library	Magazine purchased (free and paid) are recorded. So whenever you changed your gadget, as long as you have same id, they will all come back to you (you just have to re-download it again)	Magazine purchased (free and paid) are recorded. So whenever you changed your gadget, as long as you have same id, you can re-purchased it again. Unfortunately, you need to remember all item that you have purchased, and search them one by one from the market (store) because they don't give you any hint. (imagine if you have more you can remember... 10? 100? )	Magazine purchased (free and paid) are recorded. So whenever you changed your gadget, as long as you have same id, you can re-purchased it again. Unfortunately, you need to remember all item that you have purchased, and search them one by one from the market (store) because they don't give you any hint. (imagine if you have more you can remember... 10? 100? )	Magazine purchased (free and paid) are recorded. So whenever you changed your gadget, as long as you have same id, you can re-purchased it again. Unfortunately, you need to remember all item that you have purchased, and search them one by one from the market (store) because they don't give you any hint. (imagine if you have more you can remember... 10? 100? )	N/A
Score	Very Good	Good	Need Improvement	Need Improvement	Definitely Need Improvement

Summary:

Online buyer need to have lots of selection/choices of the items, simple yet reliable purchase and payment system and ofcourse secured (doogh). And the apps for these digital magazines need to be compatible, consistent and can be synced within gadgets.

And it's a no brainer if i said, your website need to look neat, nice, consistent to gain trust from your customer. and don't forget about after sales service :)

LC and blog

A friend of mine read some of my blog in my another blog address, written in Bahasa (Indonesia's Language)http://curcolyox.blogspot.com/. And he asked me whether I’ll be interested to become a blogger that paid by his company. All I have to do write 2-3 short blog a day, so his website can be googled a.k.a searchable (SEO theory).

Doing something i like... and be paid, who wouldn't be interested?

So yeah, I agreed to try it. I open a new account in blogger.com, and start to write.

So the blog was created to discuss about his products and about how to use it, where to buy it, why buying those, why buy there. etc etc etc

At first …. I can write like 3 blogs with approx 400 words each. But afterwards.. I don't know what to write anymore. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be. Well, I guess I failed to get the money, since I haven’t generated any SEO for the website.

But.. the story here is not about me flunking the test, but more about getting the idea of becoming a writer a.k.a a blogger which can generate money. I failed the first time doesn't mean I’ll fail again and again, rite? :D.

So let’s find out what I would do to to learn new knowledge bout blogging.

Be Sincere and informative.

Why can I write like more than 1000 words in my own blog, but got “brain freeze” when it come to writing for someone else. You know what I find? Sincerity. When I wrote my own blog, I use my own wording, my own terms and about myself, about what happened in my society, in my surrounding. I write it not to get anything but to fulfill my inner self, just to share to my friends about something that I know, something that I found out. So sincere and informative.. Huh… that was easy.

Be professional

As much as I want to write “ur” for “your” or “2” for “to” or “too”, I realize that this is something that I’m going to write for someone else’s business which to be read by a lot of people all over the world (if the reader can google it though :p). It’s not just a personal diary blog which will be read only by my friends. So.. keep it simple and easy to read yet still need to check on grammar. Well, as some one whom is not an expert in English language, I have flaws… sorry. But I try my best not to make stupid grammatical mistake. (If you found it in my blog, please do let me know, so I can ‘fix’ it, thank you in advanced ).

Learn more about SEO

What is SEO anyway? I keep mentioning the word from the first paragraph of my blog, So what is it?

Quoting the word from Wikipedia.org;

SEO (Search engine optimization) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. This gives a website web presence.

There is a lot to dig about SEO itself; we can tweak our own website to become more visible for the search engine. But in general, in order to be visible in search engine pages, we need to know how someone search for something they need. So simple things that we need to do is,

Always put labels or tags in your blog to describe what the topic is. For instance, for this blog my labels are: “blog”, “writer”, “paid”, “money”. Not much really, but it helps one way or another.

When you insert picture in your blog, put a name that describe the picture. Coz sometimes, reader who have slow internet connection or other issues, cant see the picture, so atleast we can have the title, so they would know what the picture is about. i.e. instead make a generic title like “picture 1.jpg” we can change it to “Blogger Website list.jpg”.

Practice Practice Practice

Last but not least. Practice is the key of every success isn't it. So I try to write something short everyday everywhere. I write through my note in my cellular devices, through my Ipad, through my notebook, and even books. Little by little you can get use to writing.

Anyway, those above are my own guidelines to learn something new.

Blogging is one of my hobbies and I’ll keep it that way. I’ll still have fun whether I can or can’t earn money from it. Just don’t stop learning rite? :D