CAPE TOWN - Covid-19 has presented media businesses with a great challenge of survival. It has also challenged them to innovate. Fast Company (SA) is not immune to these challenges.
In response to challenges presented by Covid-19, the Fast Company (SA) team has been hard at work from home. To reach readers from their homes, Fast Company (SA) has developed its first digital magazine to enable loyal readers to still enjoy the Fast Company innovation experience.
This digital magazine has fostered collaboration between editorial, design, and technology teams to work together in the process of creating the digital magazine. The outcome has been a design masterpiece that embraces digital media innovation.
Wesley Diphoko, Editor-In-Chief for Fast Company (SA), described it as a magazine worth keeping. “The digital nature of this magazine will allow us to keep updating this edition with new information as it becomes available; in that sense it is worth keeping.”
This World-Changing Ideas edition of Fast Company (SA) zooms into the Please Call Me Idea story by Nkosana Makate. The edition focuses on the value of the idea. As new information becomes available about the Please Call Me Idea, the digital magazine will be the main source of information about this remarkable South African idea.
But the magazine goes beyond just enabling reading. It allows its audience to listen to audio content and watch videos as part of the magazine experience. Next editions will have more audio and video content.
Each edition of the Fast Company (SA) magazine will come with a virtual event to enrich the experience.
According to Diphoko, Covid-19 has been a negative and a positive force in the media sector. It has been a positive force in the sense that it has forced the magazine to innovate. It has forced the magazine to have a different view of print. “In my view, the print version will still matter as a companion for digital. It will, however, become a luxury while digital enhances the experience,” said Diphoko.
In the future, this edition of the magazine will be printed on demand for readers who are collecting this series of magazines.
The print edition will reference back to the digital version to provide an immersive experience. To access it online, readers can visit digimag.fastcompany.co.za Supplied