JC / Railbird

Blood-Horse Goes Digital

Blood-Horse Digital
Last month, I wrote about waffling over renewing my Blood-Horse subscription. Too much print, I complained, and wished for an online-only version of the magazine. A few days later, a nice note from Blood-Horse circulation director Marla B. appeared in my inbox. They were working on just such a product, she wrote, and offered access to the beta, which is how I’ve been happily reading the magazine since. The screenshot above gives a sense of what Blood-Horse digital looks like: Basically, the complete contents of the print magazine are loaded into a cool browser-based reader, allowing the viewer to flip through pages, search for text, search archived issues, click on links within articles and ads, and so on. It’s a merger of print and web publishing that works surprisingly well.
Marla emailed last week that the digital edition is launching soon with a special introductory price of $39 for a year (which Railbird readers can get by calling 800-582-5604 and saying they saw it on this site). Blood-Horse readers with an existing subscription can convert to the digital edition with any unused print subscription time applied to the digital.
In case you’re wondering: No, I’m not getting a cut of each subscription or any other payment. This little commercial announcement comes about because I’m a pleased reader who really likes what Blood-Horse is doing online, and this is how I’ll be renewing my subscription …


2 Comments

Oh boy … now i’ll have to make a choice. I enjoy getting my news online but I love magazines too. I travel 1/2 the year for my work and I cannot wait to take my Blood Horse magazines and devour them and their photos while being squished into the ever crowded planes. I’ll even purposely leave the magazine on the planes for someone else to enjoy.
The organization for whom I work cancelled their magazine to do things online. Our membership had a fit and continues to complain although it’s been at least 3 yrs now.
The news may be stale by the time a magazine is delivered to your door, but there’s nothing like reading a good article and viewing the photos. I’m sure Blood Horse won’t make the same mistake as my employer and completely remove the magazine. There is still a need for the printed word. Besides, photos just don’t look the same online as they do in a glossy magazine. :)

Posted by Wendy on April 21, 2008 @ 12:20 pm

Reading online doesn’t have the same tactile pleasure of page flipping or lingering over an image, maybe bringing it closer to enjoy a particular detail, which is why I still subscribe a bunch of print publications. What really impressed about the digital Blood-Horse, though, is that the pages are sharp and the color saturated — the pictures look as good as they do in print, which is nice, especially this time of year, when the foal ads start running. For me, this a magazine I don’t need in print if there’s an online alternative, but I can totally understand why someone who travels a lot or likes to evangelize for the sport would prefer a hard copy, and I can see still ordering one or two issues a year for keeping. It’s good to have options …

Posted by Jessica on April 21, 2008 @ 2:32 pm