Apple Inc. and magazine publishers haven't been able to come to an agreement on the terms of magazine app subscriptions for the iPad, AllThingsD reported Friday. Publishers want a direct link to their clients by being able to sell the subscriptions themselves, or at least keep subscribers' data. Apple says "no."

For the past couple months, Apple has instead been offering magazines 70 percent of the revenue from each sale; the "ability to offer an opt-in form for subscribers that would ask them for a limited amount of information" such as their name, address, e-mail, etc.; and the ability to sell subscriptions to their apps through iTunes, Peter Kafka explained.

Image: bipad.net Although the publishers have a problem with the 30 percent cut of their subscriptions Apple wants, they are more miffed that the company is refusing to give them subscribers' credit card data, used for marketing. It also allows them to offer print and digital bundles, Kafka pointed out.

From the beginning, magazine publishers have been some of the iPad's biggest proponents. Conde Nast, for example, has said it expects as much as 40 percent of its revenues to come from tablets in the future, the Observer noted.

In an effort to tap the mobile platform for revenue, Australian media group Fairfax has unveiled iPhone apps based on the subscription model for its newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Today and WAToday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday.

While most newspaper publishers have opted for a one-off fee payment system, the Fairfax group is the first publisher to have launched an iPhone app based on the subscription model, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Readers can download the apps from the Apple iTunes store at a monthly charge of $2.49 and those who opt for subscriptions over a six-month period are entitled to a 15 percent discount, and therefore will pay only $12.99.

Image: AdNews Australia

"It's the first move by Fairfax Media to charge for its online news content on a mobile phone," Brian McCarthy, chief executive at the Fairfax group, was quoted by The Australian as saying. "The development of the apps is a milestone in our ongoing strategy around the delivery of content through digital platforms."

Magazine publishers are finding new ways to connect with readers through Facebook by giving them an opportunity to read content and subscribe without leaving the social networking site, AdAge reported last week.

Until recently, companies have widely used Facebook to direct traffic to external Web sites. But coming in July or August, with the introduction of a new system being developed by e-commerce application development company Alvenda and Time Inc.'s subscription division, called Synapse, users will be able to access magazine content integrated in the Facebook news feeds as blurbs. Users will be able to expand the blurbs in order to read the full story and ads will appear along with the story on Facebook itself, without being redirected to an external link.
Users will also be able to subscribe to magazines of their choice within Facebook.

"Consumers don't want to leave where they are on the web, wherever they are," Alix Hart, VP for online marketing at Synapse, told AdAge. "Facebook is a place where we think that over the coming year there are going to be more and more opportunities to present magazine offers in a really relevant way to consumers, as they're starting to share magazine content in a much deeper way than ever before."

This new system also presents an alternative revenue maximising opportunity for publishers by integrating magazine content along with ads on readers' news feeds to grab maximum reach.

By all accounts, it was a red-letter day for the Wall Street Journal.

First, Reuters reported that the newspaper's digital division would be launching a specialty product, providing premium subscribers more specialised news in niche areas than the regular paper already delivers. Then, Editor & Publisher listed the newspaper's online edition as having drawn the second most unique visitors in September among all U.S. newspapers.

The number of uniques seemed especially notable given the Wall Street Journal's Web site has a partial paywall, as well as its recent announcement it will be implementing paywalls on its mobile site, even for subscribers. However, a closer look at wsj.com's fee structure revealed that mobile phone users who sign up before Saturday may yet preview the Journal for free through January. This window of unpaid opportunity likely accounts for the spike in first-time visitors to the site.