Magazines Will Publish Directly to Homes

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is expanding its scope. And the company is trying to take its products and services in a direction that the world hasn´t seen yet. HP is expanding from just selling printers; they´re selling ink as well.

Now with the purchase of a printer, they will be offering customers ink at a monthly fee. Or if you don´t run through ink like that, then they will sign you up for their new "print-to-home" service. Services start at $5.99 a month and go up to $10.99 a month. The program is called "Instant Ink" and claims to "automatically deliver replacement ink to customers." A program of this nature could save the average consumer up to 50 percent yearly.

To start it off, HP knows what to do. They have entered a new deal with magazine publishers Condé Nast. The new program will allow your home printer to receive your favorite magazine titles like Glamour, Wired, Self, Details, Allure, Epicurious, and Golf Digest. Effectively reducing your bill, and simultaneously revolutionizing the magazine industry, with all that content coming in to your home computer, you´re going to want to sign up for an HP Instant Ink service.

"Our work with Condé Nast creates a new channel for customers to access the content they want from some of their favorite publications," said senior vice president, Stephen Nigro, of the Inkjet and Web Solutions Imaging and Printing Group at HP. "This, when coupled with our scheduled delivery service, allows customers to get the content they want, whenever they want it."

This is certainly great news for the magazine-loving consumer. That means more magazines at your fingertips in the convenience of your own home. It´s also good news for magazine publishers, since they can deliver content more easily. HP has teamed up with its publishing partners to send out e-mails, newsletters, and articles telling consumers of the new change in the home printing world.

Publishers plan to schedule home deliveries of these magazines, in order to reach consumers more effectively than through e-mail methods.

"This project is one of the many ways Condé Nast is using emerging technology to engage consumers," Julie Michalowski, senior vice president of Consumer Business Development at Condé Nast said. "With this new HP pilot program, consumers will be able to have their favorite Condé Nast content at their fingertips."

Many magazine enthusiasts aren´t compelled to make the switch though, as they can get their favorite magazine subscriptions online, on their iPads, Kindles, cell phones, or at newsstands. But if you can´t take the eye strain of reading articles online, and print is your favorite medium, the new Instant Ink Package could be great news for you.

Both of HP´s programs—"Instant Ink" and print-to-home will be revealed as pilot programs this fall. HP has not revealed which U.S. retail locations will be offering the program.

Other retailers are catering to their magazine-loving audience. Recently, Amazon.com has extended the Amazon Print Magazine Subscription Manager to include magazines that are not paid for through that service. On Monday, the retail website announced that the new manager will allow consumers to change their address or expiration date, report a problem, or cancel a subscription. Previously, only magazines purchased with through the Subscription Manager were available for these types of perks, but Amazon.com has recently expanded that to magazines purchased in other ways.

Amazon´s Print Magazine Subscription Manager started in 2009. It now gives subscribers access to thousands of print magazines, including big names like Vogue, National Geographic and Esquire.

Expanding the scope of the Print Magazine manager was a smart business move for Amazon.com, since it will allow the application to get more information about the user´s magazine habits, and that will be extremely helpful when tailoring marketing and retail offers for consumers.

"Customers rave about our Print Magazine Subscription Manager, because it makes something that used to be a hassle—like updating your address or reporting a missed issue—really easy," Sean Gorman, director of periodicals for Amazon, said in a statement. "We didn´t want to limit the benefits of this service to Amazon magazine subscriptions, so now we´ve extended it to magazines purchased anywhere."

Like every other sector in the new millennium, technology is sinking its teeth into the magazine world. Further exciting changes are still to come.