The traditional wisdom in publishing holds that you have two types of product: a print-based one and a web-based one. Say what you will about any perceived differences in writing - the big disconnect between the web and print is gloss, chic, experience, whatever you want to call it. Web pioneers give you text on a clear background with a few images around the edges. Magazines give you a page that is crafted to the article; the background might be an image from a game in question; a montages of images is arrayed around the page and the boxout is an art form in itself. The content is specially picked for you by editors, rather than you heading out to dib and dab at articles on the net.

Being a web journalist myself, I'm not saying that magazines trump the quality of the web. What I am saying is that despite the fact that the web offers all of the content of magazines - and in many cases even more - the glossy paper tomes still sell month to month; even in the tech sector, where you think the average punter would know better. People want the experience of reading a magazine, and they're willing to pay a premium for it.

Naturally enough, many moons ago somebody came up with the idea of combining the web with magazine quality publications. Most attempts have bombed after only one or two issues, however. People have an ingrained sense that despite wanting magazine quality, they don't want to have to pay for it when it's a "Bring-Your-Own-Paper" web job.

Enter UK-based Cranberry Publishing with a solution: offer eMagazines for free and without asking for so much as an email address to get them. While somewhat ingenious, it's almost obvious why the traditional publishers never copped on to the strategy.

Cranberry is the result of the rising and falling tides of British tech publishing. Publishing Director Dave Taylor was a group publisher at Future Publishing before moving to Highbury as Publishing Director. When Highbury did its impression of the Titanic in late 2005, Taylor brought Highbury's editorial and commercial directors (also formerly of Future), Dan Hutchinson and Duncan Fergusan onboard. The goal was to invigorate Cranberry, with the objective of becoming a major publisher of eMagazines.

Cranberry now has three eMagazines in the wild: Pro Evolution Soccer Fanzine and 360Zine; and a third just launched, PCGameZine. All are free, and all feature traditional magazine quality. Will Cranberry's GamerZine experiment succeed where many others - including those of their former employers - have failed? I asked Dave Taylor what his master plan is. Meanwhile, you can download the GamerZines here.

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