International newsstand now available for iPhone users

Zinio, the international newsstand that has up until now made its content available for PC, Mac, netbook, and touch-screen and tablet devices, launched an application on January 11 to share its catalog with users of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The application is available for free download at the App Store or through zinio.com/iphone.

Zinio.com offers more than 50,000 digital magazines and books through e-stores in 15 languages. The company's foray into the digital newsstand concept means a major boost in the amount of content available for smartphone users.

Among features of Zinio's e-reading platform are a "pay once, read anywhere" system and ability to optimize content for the screen on which a title is being read.

For now, Zinio's free application offers access to a limited selection of titles, including Automobile Magazine, Car and Driver, iPhone Life, Marie Claire, Motor Trend, PC Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and Redbook. The rest of its international catalog will be released at a later date.

Magazine prices are the same or lower as compared to a physical newstand: A year-long subscription to Marie Claire, for example, is $7.99, with a single issue going for $1.99; a 12-issue subscription to PC Magazine goes for $9.97, and a single issue is $5.99. A collection of single free issues is also available for those who want to sample the reading platform.

Zinio is one of several digital newsstands currently in development. On December, US magazine and newspaper publishers Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp., and Time Inc. announced their plans to launch a digital newsstand for electronic devices, called Next Issue Media and described as "iTunes for magazines." PressDisplay.com, which provides more than 1,400 titles in their original format, recently announced its availability for Sony and Kindle e-readers and for mobile phones running the Google Android system.

http://www.zinio.com