Will Texture Save Magazines?
I know I said I love billboards, but I also love magazines. I like the writing, the design, the ads and overall structural layout of magazines. 
So you can imagine my delight when I found Texture. It is touted as Netflix for magazines. There are more than 200 magazines on this subscription service.
The secret is that many of the magazines do not lose their magazine feel on the tablet-optimized display. It looks and feels like you’re reading a magazine. However, there are some fun digital enhancements thrown in that allow you dig deeper into topics or interact with some of the content.
Will this save magazines in this digital world? Who knows, but for now, this is a great way to read a lot of magazines you may never have subscribed to in the past for a small monthly fee. I was able to email ads and articles to people right out the app, so this has the potential to build organically through sharing.
If you appreciate beautiful design, large photographs and aggregated content in one nice package, you’re going to love Texture. If you are a big news, click-bait person, don’t download the app.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.