GQ Digital Edition on iTunes: Breaking the T&A Barrier?
Condé Nast announced that it will launch a digital version of men’s mag GQ on November 18 in tandem with the print issue.
The digital version available on iTunes will cost $2.99, half of the newsstand price, and there’s no word on whether snail mail subscribers get a discount. Condé says digital GQ be a perfect clone of the dead tree GQ, right down to the ads.
Our mock-up of what GQ might look like, from their online gallery.
iPhone fodder? Another GQ online gallery.
This may be a drawback — to get to the photo spreads of actresses and singers GQ features more or less as mamma made them every month, you’ll have to touchscreen through the ads to get to them on your iPhone, too.
The plus of the iPhone version is that it will have extra photos and videos not in the magazine.
The example given at the presser : if readers tap on a photo of Leonardo Dicaprio, they get photo credits and info about his clothing, plus links to where to buy it. Music stories have audio clips and links to iTunes to download songs. Conde Nast gets a percentage of sales from iTunes, but not clothing or other retailers.
It’s debatable whether the GQ content will push the no-sex barrier on iTunes more than current pseudo-saucy apps, but the men’s mag photos are stellar quality so it will raise stakes aesthetically, even if it doesn’t do away with the prudery. Via WSJ
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on 
