What's The Issuu, Joe Hyrkin?

by The Daily Front Row

(NEW YORK) From deep in the Silicon Valley, Joe Hyrkin, CEO of super tech company Issuu.com, explains his quest to save print! With a company-wide encouragement to get distracted, getting lost in a magazine is just another day on the job. Read on!
BY DENA SILVER

What is Issuu.com?
Issuu started seven years ago to marry the beauty and accessibility of print with the efficiency of digital. We started by building tools to help publishers produce their content and the ability for readers to discover content they love but might otherwise not be familiar with.

Is print obsolete?
I believe that print magazines and print-like content will stay around for a long time. I think there is an experience that people have within the context of print, but with that said, in order for print to be sustainable, there needs to be a digital component.

Why is it spelled Issuu – without the E and with an extra U?
The idea behind it is that we’re all about connecting issues of content to you, but the name is also a way to demonstrate that we’re doing something different with publishing. I always think that the extra ‘U’ connects to you as a human being. Just to note, we also own issue.com!

What magazines do you normally read?
I find myself reading magazines around content that is particularly relevant to me. So I read the Palo Alto Weekly . Also, my children are gluten-free, so I’m also reading this magazine called Gluten Is My Bitch.

Who are some of the biggest names on Issuu?
There’s the New York Times’ T Magazine, V, Armani, Red Bull, and Vice can also be found on our site. As well as The Daily!

Aside from magazines, what else can we find on Issuu?
We cater to anything that is print-like: magazines, newspapers, catalogs, lookbooks, corporate brochures and more. One of the great examples is Tom Sachs, the New York-based artist who uses Issuu to catalog the art that he has on hand and is selling.

Do you ever get distracted at work by reading the magazines?
All the time! One of our core principals, culturally, is that you’re supposed to get distracted by the content at work! We bought everybody in the company an iPad mini for two reasons: to celebrate the growth of Issuu, but the real reason was because I want everyone in the company to be constantly looking through and interacting with our publications.

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