Survey Reveals Digital Edition Reader Habits

Users still generally satisfied and still tout environmental benefits.

By Bill Mickey
Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Digital magazine producer Texterity, along with the blessings of a BPA certification, released its fourth-annual "Profile of the Digital Edition Reader" survey this week.

The 31-question survey, conducted between April and May this year, received 33,784 responses, an 8.8 response rate. Respondents represented 164 publications from 55 publishers. Two-thirds of the publishers included in the survey were b-to-b publications.

Respondents fell heavily into the "satisfied" to "very satisfied" categories, combining for 90 percent.

Environmentally friendly characteristics of digital editions, a perennial favorite, topped the reasons for reading digital, achieving 50 percent of the selection. Close behind were "easy to save" (43 percent) and "ability to search" (42 percent)—once again rounding out the same top 3 reasons as past surveys. Convenience and timeliness also ranked high with 42 and 41 percent, respectively.

Some questions skewed toward subject matter, resulting in responses ostensibly similar to print reading habits. Respondents, for example, have read at least 3 of the last 4 issues of their publication; users read multiple articles; and b-to-b readers look at digital editions for information to do their jobs better.

The survey, however, does not break out key usage responses according to market so it's difficult to to see how b-to-b and consumer readers differ, if at all, in their digital edition usage habits.

A copy of the survey is available here [registration required].