Kudos to Time Inc. for innovating and launching Maghound. But is it going to work?
What is Maghound exactly? It’s a unique way to subscribe to magazines. Instead of the traditional fill out a subscription form, send in a check, and get your magazine every month, Maghound offers something new.
You select the magazine, or magazines, you want to read, and you pay for them month by month. And, if you realize you’re not reading your Entertainment Weekly each week, and you’d rather keep you finger on the pulse of pop culture and loony vice-presidential candidates by subscribing to People magazine, then you go onto the Maghound website and change your Maghound subscription from EW to People.
What’s the benefit here? You don’t have to endure 6 months of a magazine subscription that you realize you don’t really read anymore. You can either end the subscription the following week or month, or switch to another magazine.
At first, I thought Maghound was a supremely odd, and doomed effort. But, as I’ve written this explanation, I’ve realized it makes a lot of sense. But, here’s my initial reservation, and one that remains – who has the time and energy to manage their magazine subscriptions so closely? If you decide you don’t want a magazine, you toss it in recycling each week, and you don’t resubscribe.
To me, Maghound seems to be an answer to a problem that most people just don’t think about dealing with – except for not resubscribing.
It will be interesting to watch how Maghound fares.