Back in February of this year, a small Web service called Issuu launched to little fanfare in the blogging community. I suspect there wasn't much buzz around the brand because many bloggers found Issuu's unique method of translating print magazines for the Web a little strange -- it awkwardly placed it between print and digital readership. Issuu goes against the Web 2.0 grain, sacrificing a highly searchable information database for an aesthetic reading experience which emulates traditional magazines.

Now, a few months after its launch, Issuu has a number of independent magazines featured on their site and surprisingly hosts some of the highest quality user-contributed content I have seen on the web.

But let's back up to what Issuu does for magazines. Issuu allows users to upload PDF files (most likely created in Quark or InDesign) and translates that file into a virtual magazine. The new virtual magazine can be read inside of a slick flash environment which lets a reader flip through virtual pages or zoom in on text to read. The software emulates anything a physical magazine reader would do when reading and does its best to augment physical reading habits with virtual counterparts. There is, for example, a table of contents which displays every page of the magazine, a far more efficient way of flipping through pages than a print issue ever offered. If a reader wants to enhance the experience, a "full screen" button allows the magazine to spread across the entire desktop, creating an easier reading experience through a more immersive and focused reading space.

It’s a surprisingly enjoyable method of reading a magazine, mainly because it encourages the reader to focus, interact, and read. Unfortunately while this reading tool is a well-designed Web experience, it is antithetical to many developing Web 2.0 reading habits. For example, full-screen mode is the best way to read one of these virtual magazines, but of course blocks out the rest a reader’s desktop. This is uncomfortable to savvy Web users, who often like to monitor multiple tabs, windows, and programs on their desktops. In addition, clicking the virtual page-flipping tabs and watching the animation of the page fold over is charming at first, but becomes inefficient when a reader is looking for a specific article. There are also a few minor problems that harm the overall experience. For instance, while text remains pristine when zooming, images are heavily compressed and look pixilated.

There are other problems for publishers as well. First, the site offers only minimal statistics on readership. A publisher can see the number of people who’ve read a single magazine, but not what pages they visit within it. This make it difficult to track readership interaction with advertisements to the degree that advertisers expect from Web content. Second, there are no clickable links inside of the magazine, so ad campaigns on Issuu magazines are not able to directly link to advertisers' sites. While this is true for any print magazine, one would expect that Issuu could take advantage of the Web's linkability to aid advertisers. At the moment, there is little that a mainstream publisher would benefit from publishing to Issuu, other than the ability to promote on Facebook and other sites using an embeddable Issuu widget.

Nevertheless, there are a few examples of publications offering the first few pages of their publication on Issuu as a sort of demo for the next month's spread. I suspect that Issuu isn't aiming to court big publishers, but rather independent magazines or people who want to make a  virtual demonstration with the first issue of a publication. Other than functioning as a free tool for demos or sample magazine spreads, it is hard