Blackline TV is doing something pretty unique for a podcast: it’s launching its own iPad magazine. Even more bold, it’s not trapped in the App Store or Newsstand under Apple’s developer terms and conditions. No, instead it’s living freely on the open web as an HTML5 magazine.
Blackline is a podcast that specializes in delivering a weekly dose of satire and “bad comedy” based on the latest events going on around the world. Picture Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert writing for The Onion — that’s the perspective I like to use, at least. Now it’s no longer just a podcast. The iPad magazine has one issue out and more will come on a monthly basis. It’s filled with comedic long-form articles and pieces like “Mitt [Romney] is Cool…Seriously” and “Maya Angelou’s Ice-Box.”
Upon visiting Blackline’s website to flip through the magazine, which you can only access after adding it to the home screen on an iPad, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking that it’s a native app because it behaves so similarly. The swiping gestures are fluid and the design is well done.
The choice to go HTML5 instead of taking the native route is interesting. When TUAW asked about this, co-executive editor Nonso Christian Ugbode responded, “We wanted to stand out, and we wanted to be able to say whatever we wanted without waiting to hear if we’d get into this or that app marketplace. The app space is totally crowded anyway, we’re betting on a native web trend that’s about to pour out a lot of awesome stuff.” He then quipped, “But mainly it’s because we wanted to be able to tell bad jokes about Steve Jobs.”
If you want some Blackline in your life, the iPad magazine is completely free to explore with fresh content coming each month.
[via TUAW]