new york -- Spin Magazine's print subscriptions jumped in January at least in part for a surprising reason: Its pages were posted on the Web for free.
Spin Digital, a highly interactive online version of the magazine, quietly made its debut on MySpace three weeks ago. It feels more like the print edition of the rock-music monthly than its Internet cousin, Spin.com.
In fact, the digital version is the print edition. Text and photographs are reproduced intact for online viewing, then enhanced with clickable text so that readers can listen to -- and buy -- the music they're reading about as well as find out more about products they see in the ads.
Under the partnership with MySpace, News Corp.'s popular social-networking site, access to Spin Digital will be offered free for the next 12 months to registered users of MySpace Music. (The Web address is www.myspace.com /spinmagazine; click on "Spin Digital.")
The idea is to bring the print product to the demographically desirable crowd of younger Web surfers who hang out at MySpace, said Tom Hartle, president of San Francisco-based Spin Media.
"We want to extend the reach and the reading time" of the monthly edition, he said.
It could point to a way of breathing life into the magazine business -- and give a boost to the embattled music industry at the same time.
Paper, ink and distribution costs are mounting for all magazines, and younger consumers are getting increasingly hard to recruit as print subscribers. Hartle said he hoped the digital version would find potential subscribers where they "live" online and persuade them that the monthly and its digital twin, which will probably be reserved for print subscribers after the yearlong trial, are a good buy.
The investment in the digital product is part of an ongoing revival effort for Spin, which was founded in 1985 as an alternative to venerable Rolling Stone.
Spin built a following by paying attention to the punk, hip-hop, reggae and alternative country genres, but in recent years its star was in decline. When Spin Media's parent, McEvoy Group, bought it from Miller Publishing two years ago, it paid just $5 million for what is now a title with a circulation of 450,000.
Spin.com will maintain its role as the site for breaking news that a monthly magazine can't cover, while Spin Digital gives added life to the pictures and text developed for the print edition. Through the online archives, it also lets readers stumble across articles and ads published months ago.
