Time Inc. is working on launching Maghound.com, a Netflix-like site in which consumers pay a monthly fee and have the ability to jump from one title to another each month. Sounds like a pretty cool idea, but you probably have some questions, right? Me too. So I headed over to their site and was all excited to dig in and check it out.
The site looks like it's up and running, but it's not. It's just up. I tried to click on the "How it Works" and "Find Magazines" link, but nothing worked. I must say this is very disappointing. Time is a great company with a lot of smart people, but they totally missed on this one. How can you have journalists, bloggers and others getting people all excited about this new, innovative product and then crush that enthusiasm by offering a site that does nothing? True, Maghound is not launching until September, but if the folks at Maghound are walking writers through a presentation of the site, they have to have the site ready for traffic. I just kept clicking and clicking on the links because I could not believe that it didn't work.
I like the Maghound concept and according to their early testing, they are not cannibalizing their traditional audience. I'm sure the people at Time looked at Netflix and saw that consumers often pay the fee and then let their usage slide. It's like a gym membership. Free money waiting to be grabbed. Whether it's successful as a model for getting people to read more, diverse magazines is up in the air, but the potential to make some serious cash -- something sorely needed by print media companies -- is definitely there.
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