Swipe Through Online Content in a Print Magazine
A cool article, an amazing photo, an entertaining video or a great infographic: There’s an enormous number of high-quality content on the internet. But its sheer amount makes it hard to identify the highlights. Rather than giving up due to information overload, millennials living in London now have the possibility to read the twice-monthly magazine SWIPE.
A cool article, an amazing photo, an entertaining video or a great infographic: There’s an enormous number of high-quality content on the internet. But its sheer amount makes it hard to identify the highlights. Rather than giving up due to information overload, millennials living in London now have the possibility to read SWIPE. This free twice-monthly magazine publishes the most interesting online topics.
SWIPE offers the best of the internet in print
Since May 2016 young Londoners can grab their copy of SWIPE at tube stations and selected places. Fortnightly on Thursday mornings 15.000 magazines are distributed by hand. Another 5.000 copies are displayed in creative hotspots such as co-working spaces. To appeal to generation Y SWIPE’s publishers showcase the best stories the web has to offer. But they cherry-pick not only the most popular or the weirdest ideas. SWIPE is a collection of mainstream content and inconvenient visions – and sometimes even memes.
“The internet offers more incredible content than we’ve ever seen before, but it’s hidden amidst click-bait, cat pictures and popup adverts,” says SWIPE publisher Tom Rendell. As a result he and his colleagues have created a magazine with an “internety” feel. Why have they decided to bring online content into a print format? “Nothing in technology yet has managed to mirror that reading experience of reading a magazine on the page,” he explains.
SWIPE brings the worlds of print and online together
Therefore SWIPE’s editors want to help online publishers reach new audiences. By now they already cooperate with 80 publishers ranging from international sources and niche sites e. g.
Business Insider, the Memo and Vocativ. But even though they outsource their content creation, they gather experts that have worked in both established and digital media to find new gems for SWIPE. Their aim is to combine the best of the online community and real life. And it seems like Rendell and his team are successful. They are already planning to publish SWIPE in further cities like New York and Paris.
What do you think? Has SWIPE the potential to prevent the falling print circulations? Do we need more of such offers? Share your opinion in the comments.
