Remember the web before Movable Type? If you wanted a blog you had to program one. You had to know databases and webhosts and PHP or Perl. If you were “just” a web designer, or a writer with ideas, you had to hire an in-demand web programmer to make it happen. Publishing was expensive and hard.

Apps like Marco Arment’s The Magazine give me flashbacks to that time. Wouldn’t it be awesome to publish my own magazine on the iOS Newsstand? People could read my articles on their iPad Mini, pay without typing in a credit card, and automatically receive new issues as they come.

Sounds great. But here’s the thing. To be on the Newsstand you have to program an iOS app. The tech hurdle is high, and hiring isn’t cheap. iOS programmers are in extremely high demand.

Now is a great time for another Movable Type. Writers would love a way to push serialized content straight to tablets, and the experience would be a boon to readers. Tablets are the best way to read, and Newsstand is the equivalent of RSS for non-geeks. Hopefully apps like The Magazine inspire somebody to make this happen.

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(Inspired by Craig Mod’s Subcompact Publishing.)