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The growing body of overall information on tablet readership is reinforcing some early impressions that are promising for magazines on tablets, according to Conde Nast. Readers typically swipe through tablet editions from front to back, for example, the same way they work their way through print editions. They browse -- taking in ads as they go -- instead of jumping directly to specific articles the way web surfers do. "Consumer behavior with digital editions of magazines is very much like their behavior with print editions of magazines, and very much unlike their behavior with websites," Mr. McDonald said. Digital-edition readers are also still younger but more affluent than magazines' print readers, Conde Nast said, although the disparity has narrowed as tablet ownership has grown and Amazon and Barnes & Noble have introduced devices that are cheaper than the iPad. And ads with some level of interactivity -- a hotlink at a minimum -- continue to usually hold readers' attention longer than static ads.

Only a third of the Web sites reported making a profit.

More than half the magazines put their entire print editions online free. Four percent put all or almost all print content behind a paywall, and 10 percent put some of it behind a paywall. The rest post only some of their print output online, but all of it free.

About 49 percent of unprofitable Web sites gave away all of their content, and 65 percent of profitable Web sites did the same.

Some publishers have touted digital readership as a way forward for the magazine industry as advertisers warm up to iPad editions. The 58 magazine iPad editions tracked by the Publishers Information Bureau posted a 24.5% gain in ad units through June. Still, tablet circulation has not increased as rapidly as publishers had hoped.

Magazines apps are still too big for iPads because of all the images. Each iPad magazine takes up way too much storage, and people get turned off by the iPad magazines because of that. This is a problem specific to magazines because of all the imagery, especially for ads. Books don't have this problem, since they don't need ads. The situation reminds me of early tiny MP3 players before the iPod came out with its hard drive that could store your whole MP3 collection. Magazines on iPads will start to happen once you can store a hundred or thousand issues on them at once.

Presently, online versions of magazines lose "the coherence and majesty of the [printed] medium," said Anderson. Tablets, on the other hand, offer impressive functionality, such as 360-degree views and iPhone-like screen sliding, plus collapsing and layering -- all of which make the user experience vastly more compelling than the Web,

Also revolutionary from an editorial and design perspective is that magazine staffers -- now editing for print and the Web in separate work flows -- will be able to edit for print and tablets simultaneously.

tablet renderings of traditional magazines will draw consumers who weren't magazine readers before.

Issuu is the leading digital publishing platform delivering exceptional reading experiences of magazines, books, catalogs, reports, and more. In just a few seconds users can create beautiful digital editions simply by uploading their publications.

"Apple is expected to announce soon a new subscription plan for newspapers, which hope tablets like the iPad will eventually provide a new source of profits as media companies struggle with declining print circulation and advertising revenue."

"Publishers wanted to pay Apple a fee rather than a cut of subscription and advertising revenue, and are not happy with Apple's terms, he said. They had hoped to offer app editions as part of subscription bundles that include print versions of the paper. Instead, they must use Apple as an intermediary with subscribers,"

Different genres of magazines are having decidedly different starts.

science and tech titles, for example, would probably have more fans among the first iPad owners than, say, a home decor magazine.

"The majority of advertisers who jumped on board in the beginning recognized this wasn't about scale," said Robin Steinberg, senior VP-director of publisher investment and activation at MediaVest USA. "2010 and possibly 2011 are mostly viewed as exploratory years. We are in a laboratory learning as we go. Short term, we are entering these types of initiatives to gain understanding and get exposed on a test-and-learn basis. The question is: Was it at the right price? And moving forward, should it be the same price? Doubtful."

100Eyes is edited by Andy Levin and made possible by the donation of photographic work by photographers from around the world.