Thailand is expected soon to see a proliferation of digital magazines, as publishers, media and non-media firms and software developers rush to take advantage of burgeoning tablet-computer adoption and an enthusiastic digital-content movement.

Although it is still too early to estimate a value for the digital-magazine market, the many players preparing products and contents say the trend is real and near-future growth will be rapid.

However, one aspect of the digital-magazine business remains mildly problematic: all parties jostling for a place in the new industry ecosystem have to make the quantum leap from traditional to digital magazines. There are many differences - prominent among them, interactivity - and production standards based on the advanced abilities of the digital world are already being established.

Currently, many traditional magazine publishers have been jumping into the new market with approaches ranging from application format to portable-document format (PDF) and other electronic formats.

In Thailand, there are few digital-magazine developers skilled in the use of high-cost development tools such as Adobe InDesign, WoodWing Solution, Xcode and Adobe Dreamweaver.

One recently established local software company, Digitall (Thailand), has developed the country's first Thai digital magazine, called Mars magazine. The firm is now turning its talents to developing a quarterly digital magazine for leading mobile operator Advanced Info Services (AIS).

Digitall (Thailand) executive Kamonwan Deeprasert said her company had been working on Mars magazine since October last year. It has now begun the development of AIS's digital magazine, to be called Serenade.

She said that since digital magazines where at an early stage in Thailand, developers needed a lot of awareness; they had to understand that the concept of digital magazines was not the same as that for traditional magazines. It is likely, for instance, that digital content will need to be displayed on a great variety of devices - especially tablets, for which there is huge growth in Thailand.

"Our core business is to develop informative applications for tablet devices. We play the role of a digital publisher in developing content and producing the finished magazine. Right now, we have developed the Mars digital magazine and are working on Serenade. We are also developing a digital magazine for PTT, which will be launched soon.

Kamonwan said Digitall also planned to develop its own digital-content applications about tourism and cooking. These would also be launched in the near future.

She said that from her point of view, the tough aspect of developing digital magazines was market adoption: users are not yet ready to purchase "digital content", no matter if it is offered in digital-magazine format or as a digital-information application.

"It is still okay if we do not yet have income. Investment in digital-magazine development is mostly in software and technology, but it is not cheap. In the long run, digital magazines should survive by themselves. But it is likely to take five years before the market value of digital magazines is recognised," she said.

AIS kicked off the development of Serenade, its first digital magazine, late last month. The company aims to explore communication channels with its customers and give them new experiences with digital content and services.

Assistant chief executive Pratana Leelapanung said Serenade Magazine would be an application that would provide information about AIS's products and services as well as privileges offered not only to its exiting customers, but also to potential customers. Serenade will have 13 columns covering products, services and privileges, as well as lifestyle and technology updates.

He said AIS believed digital magazines were an emerging market with potential for high growth, along with the huge growth of tablet devices. Serenade magazine will allow customers to communicate and interact with the company, the same as they do on AIS's website.

"The lifestyle of customers is going to change," Pratana said. "They are likely not to carry laptops, but will carry a tablet and leave their laptop at home or at the office. The big screen of tablets is a powerful feature, along with their mobility. These are the key reasons we decided to jump into developing content to serve this device."

He said Serenade magazine was a trial project for AIS. He admitted the company was interested in this emerging market and planned to launch new services in the future. He declined to elaborate.

"We insist on collaboration with all parties in this ecosystem, including content developers, software developers and production teams. We see it as a trend [that will grow], especially when the network speed is better. There are many things that can be done on these devices," he said.

The editor-in-chief of Mars magazine, Pachara Samutvanich, said digital magazines were the future, and all kinds of print media should be joining this trend.

He said Mars was first to join the digital-magazine bandwagon late last year, and already downloads of Mars digital magazine surpass the circulation of the magazine's printed version. The beauty of digital magazines is their lower cost, since they do away with the huge expense of paper, representing 60 to 70 per cent of the total cost of producing a traditional printed magazine.

Pachara said Mars magazine had a high volume of downloads and around 80 per cent of them were active readers downloading every month. There is a different approach to the content in the magazine's print version, which is still published, and the digital version.

"Only half of the stories in the print version are expanded and cover a story in depth when they are in digital format. This approach helps us to drive the digital version without killing the print version," he said.

However, Pachara said the two revenue streams from the digital magazine - from subscriptions and advertising - had not yet been recognised. He aims to rely on revenue from advertising, rather than from subscriptions, but advertisers are not yet paying attention to spending on digital-magazine advertising.

He expects that when many people begin to regularly download the digital magazine, advertisers will recognise the channel and begin spending on digital-magazine ads.