Customizing a magazine to your taste
My daily online written world is dominated by blogs. Maybe it’s just that I don’t go out of my way to read Webzines, or maybe I’m just partial to reversed chronologically ordered text. I’m not even sure when I last picked up a physical magazine in my free time. idio aims to change all this by providing a new kind of interactive magazine that pushes personalized content to users.
After signing up, users provide feedback about what their interests are using various sliders. idio then matches the contents of the magazine to suit your taste. The whole magazine is served via Flash, and, from the looks of it, seems to be pretty slick. On the bottom of the interface are various pages, which are marked different colors based on if you’ve read the contents of each page or not. They also let you rate each article, which will allow them to adaptively change your preferences based on your ratings.
The service is due to launch on October 25th, and they are currently soliciting writers for content. They are hinting that the ad revenues are lucrative, since they can easily serve up rich multimedia ads within their interface. And in true Web 2.0 style, they are giving away iPod shuffles to one out of every 25 authors. Initially, they are focusing on topics in design and music.
The real question is whether idio can sway readers with their customization features. Personally, I wouldn’t seriously consider this service. I’m savvy enough to customize my own set of blogs that I read myself. However, people who are regular online magazine readers and like having content being pushed out for them might have a different opinion. The founders of idio describe it like a “glossy RSS feed” which aggregates the best content around various topics. This may be the happy medium between the traditional editorial staff who picks and arranges the content and the total free-form nature of blogs. I’ll be checking this out after it launches in a few days to see what content they have garnered. It will be interesting to see if many bloggers would want to be syndicated to an online Flash magazine.
idio is based in the UK and has obtained angel investor funding.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:23 am
[…] Will Idio appeal to readers? James Yu has a long article on Idio at BuzzShout where he says that the company describes its product as a “glossy RSS feed” and says that his personalization needs are filled by his own RSS reader. Yu says, and I agree, that people less comfortable with the bare bones RSS subscription model are quite likely to enjoy something like Idio. As the success of services like MyYahoo show, a simple RSS interface is most likely to gain mass adoption. Services like Idio that are powered by RSS are even more likely to represent the future of the medium. […]
October 24th, 2006 at 11:22 am
[…] Will Idio appeal to readers? James Yu has a long article on Idio at BuzzShout where he says that the company describes its product as a “glossy RSS feed” and says that his personalization needs are filled by his own RSS reader. […]
October 24th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
[…] Idioは読者の興味をそそるものとなるだろうか? James YuはIdioについての長文記事をBuzzShoutに掲載。記事中、同社が自サービスを“glossy RSS feed（光沢紙を用いた高級雑誌のようなRSSフィード）”と描写したことに触れ、彼は自分用のカスタム化は自身のRSSリーダーで充分こと足りていると述べた。Yuはそう言うし、僕も同感だ。まったく骨組みだけのRSS購読モデルにあまり慣れていない人にとってはIdioをより楽しむだろうと思う。MyYahooのようなサービスの成功に見られるように、シンプルなRSSインターフェースは大衆によって受けれらやすいだろう。IdioのようなRSSを動力としたサービスは、未来のメディアをさらに象徴するものだろう。 […]
October 25th, 2006 at 6:29 am
[…] via ShoutBlog […]
October 26th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
We’ll have to wait & see how Idio will turned out, it’ll be interesting. For now, I think Magwerk & Breed Mag are still leading the pack in flash magazine category.
October 27th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Really, really cool idea. I’m one of those people that stills reads magazines - since I started a few pubs the magazine format is a hard habit to break. It will be interesting to see where this goes, likely it is the right direction.
The consumer continues to gain more and more control over the content he or she views. Advertisers are wise to hook up with publishings that are allowing their readers to choose content. Thanks for the post.
December 12th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
[…] I found this post on buzzshout.com a while back; finally getting around to sharing it with you. Would you be inclined to subscribe to a publication where you influence the content? Tell us what you think about this: Shoutblog » Customizing a magazine to your taste After signing up, users provide feedback about what their interests are using various sliders. idio then matches the contents of the magazine to suit your taste. The whole magazine is served via Flash, and, from the looks of it, seems to be pretty slick. On the bottom of the interface are various pages, which are marked different colors based on if you’ve read the contents of each page or not. They also let you rate each article, which can possible allow them to adaptively change your preferences based on your ratings. […]
August 14th, 2007 at 5:19 am
[…] Will Idio appeal to readers? James Yu has a long article on Idio at BuzzShout where he says that the company describes its product as a “glossy RSS feed” and says that his personalization needs are filled by his own RSS reader. Yu says, and I agree, that people less comfortable with the bare bones RSS subscription model are quite likely to enjoy something like Idio. As the success of services like MyYahoo show, a simple RSS interface is most likely to gain mass adoption. Services like Idio that are powered by RSS are even more likely to represent the future of the medium. […]
September 4th, 2007 at 4:44 am
[…] Thanks to James Yu of BuzzShout for his interesting article and to Emily Chang for her post on eHUB. […]
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