Case Study
ZineGenie

ZineGenie is a publishing platform that allows its users to ingest magazine content in multiple forms (from PDFs to XML/JSON feeds), enhance it, then distribute it to multiple platforms including desktop browsers and apps for iOS, Android and Windows.

In development since 2010, ZineGenie is a fully featured CMS capable of supporting multiple titles and publishers simultaneously. It offers social media integration, notifications, and the ability to add video and audio to articles.

ZineGenie was conceived and developed by Connected Digital.

The challenge has always been to deliver a satisfying and complete reading experience to consumers of a wide variety of different publications as digital publishing has evolved from a niche interest into a mainstream content delivery mechanism.

The pace of changing reader expectations has matched changing work practices within publishers and changing payment and subscription models.

At the same time, each iteration of the the mobile platforms has brought new opportunities as well as technical and commercial challenges.

With each client we analyse their needs and those of their customers to suggest the type of publication that we feel would be suitable.

For our first client, Syon Publishing, we used the CMS to create digital editions of their DIVE Magazine publication in both PDF page and responsive text formats. We then developed a simple to navigate iOS app to showcase the issues and the magazine’s eye-catching photography. Subsequently, their journalism moved to an article led approach, which prompted a redesign of their app to incorporate a live feed of content from their website, plus a simpler approach to subscriptions.

Over time, we have added into the CMS the ability to configure a number of formatting options, meaning apps can be instantly updated with a new design with ease. ZineGenie apps are also integrated with social networks, so customers can share content on social media directly from the app.

The flexibility of ZineGenie has allowed a range of publishers to easily inform and interact with their customers using a variety of media, reaching thousands of users every day.