I’ve been reading some computer-related magazines digitally for two years now and the experience overall has been positive. I’ll keep reading these magazines digitally as long as the option is there and they don’t become the equivalent of the annoying ‘free’ website with intrusive flashing ads everywhere, popups that try to circumvent popup blockers, auto Flash flyovers– argh, you know the type of sites I’m talking about. Sites like Forbes have become a jungle of ads like this that make it hardly worth putting on the Tarzan suit to navigate.

The New York Times decided to go the paid subscription route recently, which provides their readers a way to continue enjoying their content. I haven’t yet checked out their article archive area to find if it still has ads or not. I hope if that’s the case that they are at least toning the ads down and not making them too intrusive. Here’s why they suggest readers should pay for TimesSelect:

… users will receive access to the Times Archive (back to 1981, soon all the way back to 1851), a treasure trove of information, to put today’s news in perspective or to indulge an interest in history’s most newsworthy events and happenings. They will also receive early access to selected news, information, reviews and entertainment before they are published in the Sunday paper.

I’m a proponent of the subscription model on the web. I think it’s a better way to deal with the success problem: go to a pay model for some/all of the content vs. making the site completely unreadable or going out of business (offline) altogether.

Back to reading magazines.

Subscribing to print mags you have those little subscribe cards to deal with that always fall out and litter everywhere, even when you are already subscribed. I talked to a friend in the printing business awhile back who told me that they could selectively include those fallout cards at print, but the magazines want them in there. Why? Big bucks. From a common sense reader point of view those things make no sense. Why should I subscribe for a year when I just renewed my subscription? And still they keep them coming.

Other downsides to print magazines are computer URLs and searching. If you are somewhere without internet access or not in front of a computer, how do you save that URL? Write it down? Highlight it for later? Bookmark or dogear the page(s) where it appears? And how do you search for information about a company/article you are interested in? Print versions of magazines with internet tie-ins can be terribly inefficent for research purposes.

Enter Zinio.

Zinio was a dream come true when I first encountered them. They take popular magazines and put them in digital format. No, not the crappy PDF format that is so popular and seems to be slower dealing with than running the marathon in quicksand, but their own proprietary Zinio format. Yes, those fall-out cards are still there, but readers can just flip past them, no big deal. Ads are still there too, but those can be flipped past as well. Often the digital version of the print counterpart comes a couple week earlier than the digital version but the cost is the same, so those who choose to read the magazine digitally can receive it sooner. The timeliness perk!

For Tablet PC users, especially those with slates and in portrait mode, reading magazines with Zinio becomes a very natural and satisfying experience. You can write on the screen, annotating articles and leaving yourself notes and unlike writing on a print magazine, they can be erased so as to never mark up the actual magazine. In fact, this is one of the first Tablet PC apps that should be installed, IMO. I’m currently signed up for three paid magazine subscriptiosn via Zinio and have been a loyal, happy subscriber for two years now.

About two months ago, I noticed something new appearing inside the Zinio version of PC Magazine, something you would never find happening in the print version. If you clicked to turn the page with an ad, a video ad from Microsoft Office would start playing. In a future issue, I noticed I no longer had to click on the pages to view these video ads, they would just auto-start playing the minute you turn to a page with the ad. I am so not a fan of autoplay on pages when the user is not expecting it (fine if they are). So here you are reading along, perhaps in a meeting or during another professional atmosphere and you turn tha page and people start talking through your PC about Microsoft Office. And if you are like me — half deaf from rock and roll volume days — you have the volume on your PC louder than normal. Embarassing.

The first time this happened fortunately I wasn’t in a meeting setting and/or listening to a speech. Hmm, so now they are using auto-play video ads inside digital magazines. How much did Microsoft pay for these — from what I can tell — exclusive video ads inside PC Magazine?

As these ads continued to play I started to become annoyed. Sometimes you are reading through the page opposite the video ad and it just starts replaying. So enter not only just having to listen to the ad on the page you are on auto-playing, but having to listen to it playing repeatedly on the opposite page where you aren’t even viewing it.

Screw that.

So, I searched for a way to turn these new video ads off. Sure enough in the Zinio settings there is something called “Rich Media” and by default — shame on you, Zinio — the following two boxes are checked: “Play Rich Media Automatically” and “Show Rich Media Indicators” (pictured to the right). The second box if left checked will show a flashing blue box with a video camera. You might have to restart the Zinio program for the changes to take place. I did.

There are other things about Zinio that as a subscriber I don’t like. Their customer support system sucks. You have to use forms and FAQ instead of being able to pick up a phone and just call somebody. One time I had an issue where I couldn’t read my magazines with the Zinio reader application (DRM issues). I notified Zinio of the issue, and it took nearly a week to get a solution. A week down with zero access to not just one magazines, but every Zinio-based digital magazine in my collection. Another issue has happened recently with my MacWorld subscription in that now they are sending it to me in print instead of digitally. Visit the Zinio website and try to change that back and the screen just reloads itself to the main accounting area. I never requested the print version and I can’t switch it back. I called MacWorld and they give me a number to call Zinio. The Zinio number just goes to a machine. Back to their forms/email-only website, grrr. C’mon Zinio, you are making money, hire some customer support reps!

These grievances aside the experience has been a happy, satisfied one, but I sure do hope a slippery slope hasn’t been started with these new video ads. Admittedly I’m skeptical. What’s next? Ads that cannot be turned off? Flyovers with no close button during the first play? Tracking bugs to see what pages are read most?

Be careful here, Zinio. Be very, very careful. You have a good thing going but the precipice is near. Don’t mess with the money.

Fortunately, us readers will always have the ultimate off switch if things get too crazy: unsubscribing.

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