Date	Event	Details
1982	Magazines start to use electronic mail and online noticeboards	Acorn User (Addison-Wesley) uses Dialcom/Telecom Gold, a subscription-based email system
1982	Cover disc - vinyl	Your Computer (December) 33.3 rpm vinyl single holding Sinclair ZX81 games
1982	Publishers start to use computer networks	Acorn User and contract publisher Redwood throws out all typewriters and introduces Econet sysyem based on Acorn BBC Micro technology. Copy written on networked BBC terminals, stored on floppy discs or 5MB network hard drive and printed on centralised daisywheel or dot matrix printers to be sent to typesetters. Redwood continued to use the system - which grew to about 80 terminals - before switching to Macintoshes running Quark XPress
1983	Subscription-based online bulletin boards using viewdata systems (broadcast by TV stations or over telephone lines)	Viewdata systems consisting of several hundred 'pages', each of 24 characters by 20 lines of text (1K in size): Ceefax (BBC): data was broadcast inbetween television frames (not interactive) . Prestel (British Telecom): over telephone lines (1200/75 baud). in-house systems for companies, eg travel agents . bulletin boards on home computers used this technology. other systems were Minitel in France and Telidon in Canada.
		Emap launches Micronet, which reaches 1m subscribers. Magazines and individuals set up their own pages using Prestel
	Thousands of computer users run own boards from home, office or school using BBC Micros, modems and phone lines
Schools in the Outer Hebrides on the west coast of Scotland had access to a dedicated viewdata system in 1984
1986	BBC attempts to establish a standard for interactive video discs	Domesday system with Philips Laservision disc player - using double-sided, 12-inch optical discs - controlled by a BBC Micro
1980s	Development of digital technologies for handling typesetting and image manipulation	Apple Macintosh (1984) Postscript from Adobe Systems (1984) Apple Laser Writer printer (1985) Aldus Pagemaker (1985) ISO defines SGML (1986) Adobe Illustrator (1987) Quark Xpress (1987) Adobe PhotoShop (1989)
1992		Adobe Acrobat PDFs
1994	Newspapers move to the web	Daily Telegraph claims to be the first national newspaper on the web
		*The Unzip* CD-Rom from IPC was based on content from titles such as New Musical Express and New Scientist in 1995**
1995	CD-Rom magazines	At least 10 available (Baumann 1995). Blender (Dennis); Unzip, 'the UK's first fully interactive magazine on CD-Rom' (IPC)
	CD-Rom cover mounts on non-computer magazines	August issue of men's monthly Maxim (Dennis Publishing)
	Websites for mainstream magazines	Uploaded.com (Loaded, IPC); nme.com (New Musical Express, IPC)
1996	Electronic auditing	ABC Electronic established to provide independent certification for data related to electronic media
		X-Net was bi-monthly, which came with a CD-Rom and a cover price of £7.95 for 100 pages. It featured popular pin-up Jo Guest and carried hundreds of addresses for pornographic as well as sport, comedy and car websites. The CD-Rom held more than 300 links to websites and used the sales line: 'Babe Fest! Interview the girls, then watch them strip.' It caused a furore, to which its editor, Dominic Handy, responded in the Guardian: 'We did not go out to publish a porn mag, we wanted to publish Loaded for the internet.'
1997	Digital kiosks	BT Touchpoint with NME, Loaded and Marie Claire content
		Improving technology meant CD-Rom titles could market themselves based on their video content. Among the publishers to exploit this development were those behind top-shelf titles such as Enter
1999	BRAD (Nov) directory lists 668 entries under 'new media'
2000	CD-Rom magazines based on video content	Enter monthly from Pure Communications
2001	Digital facsimile editions of newspapers start to appear	'Flat PDFs' with no interactivity
2003	SMS text messaging	Loaded (IPC)
	Online media have become mainstream: BRAD (Jun) no longer lists websites separately
2005	Financial Times launches digital facsimile edition	Includes How to Spend It
	Digital paper announced
2006	Switch in teenage spending to online and mobile-phone-based media blamed for teen magazine closures	Emap closes Smash Hits. The name lives on as a digital music TV channel and radio station, online and as a mobile phone service
	Digital (facsimile) magazines	Exact Editions launches first titles (Feb). Quickly expanded to include Dazed & Confused
	Downloadable magazines for phones	Time Out, OK!, Glamour, GQ on Mobizine platform (Feb)
	Magazines launch on YouTube	Condé Nast puts Glamour, GQ and Vogue on YouTube
	YouTube seen as affecting (men's) magazines	‘Unloaded, and now the party is over,’ (Brown, 2006)
	Magazines use YouTube for marketing	Nuts men's weekly (IPC) celebrates sales results with a raunchy ad on YouTube
	Temporary video websites exploiting social networking	Zootube.co.uk for Emap's Zoo men's weekly
	TV magazines cover online films and podcasts	Radio Times covers YouTube, iFilm and Google Video on radiotimes.com and in magazine
	Interactive digital-only magazines launched	Monkey from Dennis. 'The world’s first weekly digital men’s magazine' (Nov)
	Media organisations launch special editions in Second Life online world	US technology title Wired (October); German tabloid Bild (December); Sky News (May 2007); CNET, Reuters, BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4 Radio (Green 2007)
2007	TV guide revamps website to help find shows on the web for downloading	Radio Times
	First ABCe figures for digital -only and print magazines	Monkey releases ABCe of 209,612 copies a week

	Digital-only magazine for teenagers	National Magazines launches Jellyfish as a trial using Ceros technology. The magazine's motto was 'if it moves, click.' However, problems with the emailed files being blocked because of poor mailing lists led to the experiment failing and it was closed within 6 months.
	Contract publishers seek ABCe audits for digital titles	River Publishing registers Healthy for Men with ABCe (May)
	Advertising revenue rising but 'no one has got the business model for online cracked yet,' Stevie Spring (chief executive, Future Publishing)
	'[Newspapers] have yet to find sound monetisation models' (Richard Stephenson, chairman of Yudu Media, quoted by Kirby 2007)
	Magazines move into digital TV	Nuts TV channel based on the weekly IPC men's magazine (September)
	Free weekly men's magazine launched with website	ShortList gives away 500,000 copies. 'Our site is completely central to everything we're planning' Mike Soutar, quoted in Dorrell, 2007
	Online digital facsimile newsagents launched	MyMag Online in Ireland
	DVD magazine announced	'The world's first' magazine on DVD from Expansive Media (for November launch)
	Publishers working with digital paper	E-Ink working with Time magazine (Moses)
2008	Digital magazines becoming an established medium	Exact Editions has about 70 titles; Ceros 200. In February 2008, Zinio launches Global Newsstand to make 850 titles available to buy and read online
	Brand expansion for Monkey	Dennis Publishing and mobile media company Player X launch Monkey as a free mobile TV channel (March)
	Dennis builds on Monkey business model	Dennis launches fortnightly iMotor and Gizmo
	Monthly car launch	Motor Play launches as a free digital car monthly ‘with over 200 pages of beautifully produced articles on cars’

Bibliography
ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations), www.abc.org.uk Anon (2007) 'Getting the measure of the online audience,' Media Week, 14 August, p23 Baumann, H. (1995) 'The Digital Future of Consumer Magazines,' BSc dissertation, West Herts College, Watford, April BRAD (monthly guide to advertising data), www.brad.co.uk Brown, J. (2006) ‘Unloaded, and now the party is over,’ The Independent, 18 August, p12 Dorrell, E. (2007) 'Lads' mags resign to following audience online,' New Media Age, 6 September, p12 Duffy, D. (2007) email from managing director to Tony Quinn, Cerosmedia.com, 30 August Fitzsimmons, C. (2007) ‘Jellyfish closure is another blow for teen sector,’ Guardian, 14 August, http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,,2148566,00.html Green, C. (2007) 'Virtual visions,' Independent, 27 August, pp8-9 Hodgkin, A. (2007) email from Exact Editions, 28 August Kirby, A. (2007) 'Digital editions', In Circulation, September/October, pp 42-44, www.incirculation.co.uk Moses, L. (2007) 'Time Inc. Eyes New Ad Apps,', Media Week (US), 8 October http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003654557 NRS (National Readership Survey), www.nrs.co.uk Quinn, A., Duggan, F. and Vernau, J. (1997) CD-Rom for Publishers, Pira International, Leatherhead Quinn, A. (2007) ‘ UK national newspapers,’ Magforum.com www.magforum.com/papers/nationals.htm WARC (World Advertising Research Center) www.warc.com

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Digital magazines: a history

by Tony Quinn

Showing the way to go (early 1980s)

Digital production (late 1980s)

CD-Rom magazines (mid 1990s)

Development of digital media back to top

Bibliography