HP MagCloud Brings Zine Printing Up To Date

Do you contribute to websites like Wikia? Ever thought you’d reach a wider audience with a paper magazine, but thought the cost of printing made it impossible? If so then MagCloud – the internet publisher from ink cartridge manufacturer Hewlett Packard – could bring your dream to a cost effective reality.

HP MagCloud enables web communities to produce stand-alone print versions of their web pages. Members decide the articles for inclusion (printed at 20c each) and create a front and back cover – then upload them to the MagCloud website. Once they’ve approved the proofs, the community buys only as many copies as desired.

The beauty of HP MagCloud is that unsold copies of the magazines are never printed – unlike traditional printing. Instead, each issue remains publicly available online – even after the community has moved on, others can order copies of their magazine. This is because advances in printing make a once costly process relatively painless – see customised greeting cards company Moonpig for proof.

At a time when publishers are struggling to become relevant in the digital realm, HP MagCloud gives print real appeal for people who consume content online. The print application has received almost universally good reviews online – except from Derrick Harris of Gigaom.com, for misusing the term ‘cloud computing.’ To bring your articles off the internet, HP MagCloud could be worth looking at!