Full-length magazine features, once the sole preserve of readers of the print edition, are now available via PayPal’s easy-to-use micropayment gateway. For a small price, the feature not only unlocks on the website, but provides the purchaser with a unique code allowing them to access the same content on up to five further devices.
After winning the PPA’s “Best online presence” in 2008 following the launch of www.lussoluxury.com, the magazine launched Lusso for the iPhone, offering its well-heeled and savvy readership the ability to access the print copy’s entire contents in a user friendly and seamless format. Off the back of this success was launched the magazine’s iPad application in 2010 - a short, two months after the device’s UK release and coinciding with the magazine’s five-year anniversary edition.
Lusso magazine’s editor-in-chief, Greg Nasmyth, explains, “We saw the ease and accessibility of the iPhone app market early and realised that the iPhone’s capabilities of presenting both image, data and video presented a real threat to our business model - but also a massive opportunity. Hence our five year plan has been to continue concentrating on creating great content, our core product, and exporting that into as many mediums as possible, whether it be in print, on a smartphone, on a tablet or on the web is not important. Lusso’s readership is truly global and highly fluid. If they want to download the magazine while cruising in their yacht off the Côte d’Azur, or now, with the PayPal micropayment gateway, just read the review of their newest hotel, then we make sure they can.”
The micropayments system was implemented by digital agency Stonewash DD&AG, who have had a long-standing relationship with SWR Media, creating their website, smartphone and tablet application. Robert Grainger, managing director of the company’s London office commented, “Lusso have made fantastic use of the platforms that we built for them, the award for their website is as much a testament to the quality of content they publish online as the platform and technical ability of the website itself. The addition of the micropayments to their site will allow them to publish their larger features, which they previously have not wanted to publish for free.”
The micropayments system works using a simple two-click process. After loading a premium feature the reader is given the option to purchase a single feature for 50 pence. Without leaving the page, the user is prompted to enter his or her PayPal information and choose whether they want the site to remember their details. Immediate access to the full feature is then given to the reader. An email confirmation is also sent to the user providing a unique code allowing them to unlock the same article on up to five different devices.
Greg Nasmyth, Editor, explained, “It was important to us that a reader should be able to read the article they have paid to see at home, work, on their phone or tablet but we felt it was important to place a limit somewhere. We felt a limit of five should cover a reader for most devices but prevent abuse and over-sharing of the access codes”.
Now that micropayment and premium content on the website is live, the company will begin work on expanding its tablet application to incorporate the Blackberry PlayBook and the new Android tablets using the new 3.0 “Honeycomb” tablet operating system. Work to incorporate the recently announced Apple subscription service and Google’s ‘One Pass’ subscription service for Android is already underway.
