Destinations Travel Magazine.com Answers the Question Digital vs. Print with a Functional & Newly Interactive eMagazine

Online, April 12, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Due to digital media's rapidly growing wave of popularity, the publishers of two online travel magazines - Destinations Travel Magazine.com (www.DestinationsTravelMagazine.com) and Travel Virginia Magazine (www.TravelVAMagazine.com) - have chosen to embrace the digital age and focus on this new platform. They have made the decision to put their time, effort and investment into expanding their magazines' online presence and functionality, as well as cultivating their online fan and reader base.

The advantages of the newest gadgets that read electronic media - Barnes & Noble's "Nook", Amazon's "Kindle", and now Apple's iPad - are that they're reducing the need for backpacks or book bags to lug around volumes of magazines and books; reading materials are now limitless; the world is taking a giant step forward to "Going Green", by eliminating paper waste; digital media delivers a new functionality to readers. Of course, a key advantage to the publisher is the ability to reach a worldwide readership.

In keeping with this trend toward functionality, its publishers have just introduced a new, interactive format in the current issue of Destinations Travel Magazine.com. This new format empowers readers with the ability to click on the Table of Contents and navigate to specific pages, bookmark and add notes to favorite pages, share links to specific pages with others, zoom pages in and out, as well as view in full screen mode for comfortable reading and even turn sound on and off.

In addition, they have introduced "Intuitive Word Search". This feature enables readers to type in a specific word or phrase and all pages within the publication can not only be referenced, but are also "Live Linked"- with a mouse click, the viewer can quickly navigate directly to the information.

And for advertisers, a click on an ad takes the viewer directly to the sponsor's website or reservations site effectively and with ease.

Can print compete with this?

How does the online publication's reader base feel about the changes? Lois de Vries, Field Editor and Location Scout for Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Media , had this to say, "...there's been a lot of discussion on the list about electronic publications. This is the best I've seen so far. The preview pictures help find what you want quickly, there's no hesitation or flubs in the page-turning "mechanism," you can go to full screen with a single click, without losing functionality, and you can easily navigate around the spread for easy reading. Destinations has developed a magazine I would be willing to read online!"

And where does digital media go from here?

The team at Destinations Travel Magazine.com and Travel Virginia Magazine are planning to include more of whatever it takes to further enhance the "virtual travel" experience. They are still researching what the next step will be.

And for those who would rather enjoy the full benefits of actually heading to one of the destinations they find in either publication, they can physically book that trip right on either magazine's website.

True functionality!