Saying that paying for and managing multiple digital magazine subscriptions has stalled true adoption of the delivery medium, Magzter CEO Girish Ramdas announced the launch of a Netflix-inspired service called Magzter Gold that gives subscribers access to more than 2,000 publications for $9.99 a month.
“It’s still early days for digital magazine reading,” Ramdas said.
In conjunction with the launch, Magzter introduced an interface that uses content discovery to increase reader engagement. The new algorithm offers suggested reading to users based on their interests and behavior and allows them to download several titles at a time.
In addition, Magzter’s user intelligence told its executives that a significant portion of customers read the same handful of magazines. For this segment, the company introduced Magzter Gold Lite, which gives them access to five titles for $4.99 a month.
Magzter expects 60% of its 2015 revenue to come from subscriptions and 30% from advertisements, according to an interview Ramdas gave to The Hindu in September. Previously, the company made its money by taking 35% of the digital subscription prices of publishers. Ramdas added that he expects advertising to eventually compose Magzter’s primary revenue stream.
