Customizing a magazine to your taste
October 23rd, 2006
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.
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.
