Print periodicals — magazines, newspapers, catalogs, etc. — were for most of industrialized history the central source of truth to our society. 

 

They served us our world events, scientific discoveries, and political commentary typed up tidily in neat little columns to accompany our morning coffee or our cross-town commute. They lined the variety of corporate offices and medical spaces in which we often find ourselves waiting — for good news or bad news or no news at all — with the far less weighty announcements of a celebrity pregnancy or red-carpet rundown. They dictated our tastes, cleverly curating seasonal style trends and critiquing the films, exhibits, and restaurants we would frequent to fill up our free time. 

In an analog world, these publications were trusted to deliver the most pressing details of any major development across the globe, and for some time, were counted among the most reliable primary sources for “the facts” of any given era. As such, they played a pivotal role in both subtly and overtly shaping public opinion, disseminating timely information, and providing pop cultural entertainment to the rapt masses. 

Now, though, as our modern reality has been repeatedly reshaped, retooled, and reimagined by the unapologetic advancement of technology, we find ourselves accidently attempting to pinch-zoom the text on printed pages and have opted to go paperless more often than we’ve not. Our minds, culture, and habits have unalterably moved toward immediate gratification and instant communication – a tectonic shift that has fundamentally impacted every single industry and most every human alive today. 

 

As publishers and editors have racked their brains for ways to remain relevant and competitive in an increasingly online ecosystem, many digitized iterations of print media have been tested on target audiences. 

We’ve watched downloadable PDFs shoot their shot at bringing a mobile-first experience to readers, largely to fall flatly and fail to hold the attention of even the most loyal subscribers (because, truly, very few consumers want to spend their time toggling their fingertip back and forth endlessly to attempt to read a stagnant image of a five-page feature on such a small screen).

Next came the click-through-link-in-bio approach to journalism via social media squares filled with clickbait headlines and sensationalized storylines. Beyond the cannibalization of context, storytelling, and fact checking that this strategy requires, it ushered in an era of distrust and “fake news” that has cast a dark shadow over the root foundation of journalism. 

With this approach, truth and education are no longer KPIs of success – eyeballs, engagement, and the capacity to go viral are. That pivot is a dangerous one.

How, then, can we keep the integrity of peer-reviewed, long-form, print journalism alive in an age that thrives on the opposite? A different kind of digitization. A dynamic take on downloadable text. A live, intuitive, immersive rendering of the vetted stories that merit real attention. 

In recent years, we’ve seen a few technology companies release their solution to this industry-wide issue, but many of them have neglected to capture the multimedia-rich and mobile-first experience that today’s consumers expect. At WorldPlus, we chose to tackle all of the above by simplifying the experience of consuming content from the world’s top publishers and brands from any mobile device, including the 80% of global consumers who do not own an Apple device and therefore do not have access to Apple News + stories. 

Through the WorldPlus digital publishing platform – which has already transformed the “print media” paradigm in numerous markets throughout Asia – publishers can layer in ultra-high-definition multimedia plugins and vibrant mobile-first layouts that are tailor-made to fit each device, while offering seamless in-app shopping capabilities and multi-directional touchscreen navigation that make the experience intuitive, inventive, and multidimensional. Essentially, rather than just “digitizing” the go-to-print format of an issue as a PDF, we extract content from the original layout to rethink and reskin the copy in a way that not only fits every mobile device properly, but also provides a more interesting, more readable, and more dynamic experience to the entire market of mobile users.

As Samuel Tisdale of the New Media Alliance put it, “WorldPlus challenges the traditional perception of digital magazines and revolutionizes the way readers engage with them. The game has changed.”

In this ever-evolving, tech-obsessed era where downloadable PDFs and clickbait-driven journalism have struggled to capture or captivate audiences, WorldPlus has pioneered a truly dynamic approach to digitization that transcends the limitations of static images on small screens – offering publishers and readers an active, intuitive, and experiential window into the content that deserves genuine attention.

To gain access to the full digital library of WorldPlus premium content, download the WorldPlus app via Google Play or the App Store.