After launching its magazine versions for Apple’s iPhone, the publishing group Condé Nast is closer to signing another deal with Apple. This time, the publisher aims to create iPad versions of its popular titles Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, Glamour and the New Yorker.
According to New York Times, the publisher’s GQ magazine will have a tablet version as sooner as April, with the other titles soon following. The company is currently selling an iPhone application for GQ, with over 15.000 reported sales for the January issue.
“We need to know a little bit more about what kind of a product we can make, how consumers will respond to it, what the distribution system will be”, said Thomas J. Wallace, editorial director of Condé Nast.
All company’s digital magazines will be developed internally, except Wired, which is already involved in a reader project with Adobe, the software company that provides publishing tools to the magazine industry in general.
However, the company has not yet decided on the ad formats or subscription pricing. “What we’re looking at right now is what kind of ad units for a phone and iPad would optimize the experience for a consumer”, commented Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital, adding that the final experiment would only take place towards the last quarter of 2010, but only if the the results are promising.
