Virtual Magazine Rack

A new web site named Maggwire.com provides magazine publishers with a new means to distribute their content online.

Maggwire intends to apply the i-Tunes business model to magazine publishing, which you probably already know is drowning in red ink.

According to a company press release, "For the first time, magazine readers can select a topic and browse current magazine articles from a pool of more than 600 leading magazine publications.

While Maggwire Beta is currently free, the company is partnering with magazine publishers to develop Maggwire Premium, a subscriber model that will deliver premium magazine content exclusively to Maggwire users."

So what's the big deal? Magazine publishers have been putting their content online for years. Many have tried to charge for so-called premium content with few takers. Why is Maggwire.com any different?

The company's co-founder and COO, Jian Chai readily admits that virtually all digital initiatives by magazine publishers to date have been failures. The reason? "Magazines have achieved limited innovation compared to music, videos and books," explains Chai. "Now we finally have a product focused on delivering an incredible experience to readers, while helping magazine publishers and advertisers reach their goals."

The user experience will be shaped and driven by social intelligence technology.  In other words, based on your reader preference history, Maggwire "learns" what you like to read and then makes recommendations accordingly.

Here's how your preference history is tabulated: As you read and rate articles with 1-5 stars, Maggwire.com builds a personalized profile of your interests. The company then uses that information to "predict" how you will rate newly-published articles.

What's more, unlike Amazon's and Apple's proprietary approach to content distribution, Maggwire is an open platform, accessible from any phone, computer or digital reader.

The amount of magazine titles available on Maggwire.com surpasses that found on traditional news stands. However, no dental publications yet.