Publishers Expected to Announce Digital Newsstand Venture

This week, Time, Inc., Hearst, Condé Nast, Meredith, and News Corp. are rumored to be announcing a consortium to create a so-called "iTunes for news," according to a report from Ad Age's Nat Ives.

As John Koblin reported in the New York Observer last month, John Squires, executive vice president at Time, Inc. is being tapped to oversee the group, which one unnamed executive (perhaps channeling Catch-22's Major Major Major) described to Ives as "an agreement to agree on future developments." (As ever, Portfolio.com is owned by American City Business Journals, which like Condé Nast, is owned by Advance Publications.)

Not since Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman joined forces to form the SuperFriends has there been a more promising group brought together to fight for a common cause. But instead of fighting evil (not easy, since News, Corp. is in the consortium), they're fighting to save their own bottom-lines, one digital magazine download at a time.

It's unclear what role Skiff, the recently-announced Hearst content platform will play in the deal, or what platform the group is selling on. Skiff, which used to be known as FirstPaper back when consumers knew what paper was, promises to deliver content to "dedicated readers, smartphones, tablets, notebooks, and PCs." Skiff's website even has a call to publishers to join up, offering (among other things) "Participation without the need for incremental investment or staff." (Who said the future of publishing was going to be interesting?)

Whether this partnership goes the way of Contentville, under whose banner Steven Brill brought together partners like CBS, NBC, Primedia, Ingram Book Group, and EBSCO to sell digital articles, books, and other documents int the early part of this century, or manages up being something closer to Hulu, the video site founded by rivals NBC Universal and News Corp. (with Disney buying 30 percent after launch) is an open question. Hulu's popular, but it's still free. The reaction to Hulu possibly charging for shows was met with groans. If readers' favorite magazines and newspapers suddenly leave the Web in favor of some proprietary storefront—which may or may not require new hardware or downloading software—there may be a backlash.

But all of this is a little premature since this consortium of SuperMediaFriends hasn't even been announced yet. It doesn't even have a name.

Let's hope they don't go with Skiff: When much of the conversation around your business is full of Titanic metaphors and references to life rafts, do you really want to christen your industry-saving, paradigm-shifting partnership after a teeny, tiny boat? You're publishers: Surely you can come up with something better.