This past summer MegaNews teamed up with electronics company Ricoh to introduce Stockholm to something of the future in our shopping malls: the magazine kiosk.  With the new age of self-checkouts and self-service, it’s not a surprise that this new development has hit our city’s streets. Print media has continually struggled to stay alive with a generation that is glued to their smart phones and tablets, so the kiosks have come at just the right time to open up a curiosity for those who have seemed to lose interest in print.

These kiosks have over 100 publications nationally and globally to choose from. The kiosk allows the customer to browse through the cover of the magazines and choose the one they want. As soon as the magazine is chosen and the money is received into the machine, the magazine is printed out for the customer. This new invention is a huge buzz for publishers because it enables the printing to directly correlate with the demand. The magazine will only be printed if a customer chooses to buy it so its saves tons of money with printing magazines that are never bought.

So the product is not only creating a new unique and easy way for people to get print magazines but is also cutting print costs. The only negative falls on the small newsstands that are fighting to stay alive on our city’s street corners. Can they survive this surge into the future?