Zinio has taken the wrappers off of its new subscription package for digital magazines. The new program is called Z Pass and will allow customers to enjoy three magazines per month for just $5. Hundreds of magazines including Popular Mechanics, Marie Claire, Fast Company, PC Magazine, and others are participating in the program. Select magazines have agreed to participate with an added surcharge.
Zinio Z-Pass is available on the company’s new HTML5 beta website and and, once subscribed, the magazines will be automatically delivered to any device you have with an official Zinio app. The ability to subscribe to this new program will launch in a few months for iOS, Android, Windows RT, and Blackberry. Existing customers can get 3 issues for free for the first month and then pay $5 after it’s over. This should give you a strong sense of how the app performs.
One of the cool features of the new Beta Zinio Site is that you get an entirely new HTML5 experience. This allows you to read quite easily on any web-browser on any device that supports it. Normally Chrome and Safari are the two leading browsers to really give you the best experience, but the Blackberry Playbook browser is no slouch either.
This is a interesting new program and Zinio is the first digital magazine company to successfully convince publishers to adopt this type of format. Traditionally, publishers are very resistant to new programs like this and it will be interesting to see how customers respond. You can sign up for Z-Pass right now HERE.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
