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SWIPE is a magazine that gives the 20–35 year- old millennial audience the variety of content that they want, but in print – the medium that they still prefer to read in.

SWIPE: the best of the web in print

We chat with Tom Rendell , publisher of SWIPE, a fortnightly magazine that publishes a print digest of articles originally posted on the Internet. Its target audience consists of London millennials: 25–30 year-olds living and working in the UK capital. A total of 15,000 copies are distributed at London underground stations and 5,000 at selected locations such as offices and cafes.

Q: How did you come up with the idea? A: My business partner Barney Gui- ton and I were working together at Newsweek , where we learnt a lot about creating and publishing a high-quali- ty magazine. We’ve also worked in on- line media start-ups prior to that, and thought about a media brand that could incorporate the reading experience of print with the amazing variety of the internet. The result is SWIPE, a maga- zine that we feel gives the 20–35 year- old millennial audience the variety of content that they want, but in print – the medium that they still prefer to read in. Q: Why did you choose to go with print? A: We know that people still love print, but print magazines haven’t been do- ing enough to interest audiences in the face of major competition from online publishing. It’s not that print is dead but it has perhaps failed to innovate. As much as 81% of people still prefer to read in print across all age groups – in- cluding the first digital generation, mil- lennials – but the content has to be ex- cellent to keep their attention. It’s also about getting the right type of content on the right platform; social media and videos are designed to be consumed on mobile but long-form journalism and great photography – of which there is so much online – is still far better en- joyed in print. Q: What are the strengths of print in terms of trying to reach millennials? A: Print is booming in London at the moment – but as long as your distribu- tion model is free. Millennials won’t pay for print but they’ll happily take a free magazine if it’s correctly targeted at them. The good thing about free print

is you can target distribution very ef- fectively. At SWIPE we focus on Tube stations in south, central and east Lon- don where our target audience live and work. As well as publishing the best of social media, Instagram and fun trend- ing stories, SWIPE also has a long-read feature each week, which can focus on politics, travel, food – almost anything. There’s amazing writing, reporting and opinion online from sites like Roads & Kingdoms, but it can be hard to find online in an environment dominated by SEO, clickbait and social media shout- ing. We want to help our readers find amazing writing and content that they would have otherwise missed, and a print magazine gives them the perfect environment in which to do that. Q: What do you think the future will hold for print media? A: It’s encouraging to see the increas- ing competition and variety on offer in print. This can only be a good thing and will keep readers interested. Print has to continue to focus on what it’s good at – discovery, quality, interest – and keep standards high. If the standard of print publishing drops in order to make ad- vertisers happy, readers will just go on- line. Q: What about the relationship be- tween print and digital? A: Going forward I think it’s impor- tant to focus less on the print-online di- vide. It’s the content that’s important, whether its being consumed on Snap- chat, Mashable or The Sunday Times Magazine. Readers have more options than ever at their fingertips so publish- ers have to work hard to keep their in- terest, and then work hard to advertis- ers to show they have an engaged audi- ence that is worth reaching.

Text: Mari Hirvi Photo: SWIPE

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