Periodicals in eBook Form

One thing I have noticed at Fictionwise is that some genre magazines are now being offered in ebook format. One example is Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. It seems to me that this is a very good idea for magazines, since so many times they are read once and then either thrown away or tossed into a box to languish forgotten until the next time you move to a new house. Magazines are intended to be disposable and so an electronic format ought to suit them well. Literary magazines lend themselves well to this because they are text heavy, but I could see Time or Newsweek coming out with a paid ebook edition.

I have not tried buying an ebook magazine to see how they are formatted. I am curious. I think I would prefer to have more than just text. That may serve well for novels, but part of the joy of magazines is having some illustrations and pictures. IMHO. I know they cannot recreate the whole print version experience on a handheld screen, but I would like to see the "feel" recreated to some extent in the formatting.

I am wondering if it would also be worth it for non-print ezines to offer an ebook version in addition to a web version. I have seen this in ezines delivered by email, The Illuminata is a good example of one sent in PDF format, but I am thinking of more PDA friendly formats. I wonder if their is a market for that? I wonder if many ezines and webzines could broaden their readership by offering PDA friendly formats of their magazines that could be downloaded or emailed to the subscriber especially if this were marketed to the handheld owners? It seems to me that handheld owners are always looking for new content and ezines are always looking for readers, especially the free ones that are put out as labors of love - could there be a market?

While I am thinking of Fictionwise, they have a free ebook giveaway going on. Grab them while you can.