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Magazine subscriptions are strong commitments of a sort; after forking over a few bucks, you're locked into receiving a single publication for a year (or more) or your life.  Time Inc. aims to loosen things up by launching a Netflix-style site for magazines called Maghound.

Starting this September, members will get to pick any three out of an initial 300 or so titles for $3.95 per month.  A full 400 titles are supposed to become available by year's end, and people are encouraged to change their selections as often as they like.  They can receive more magazines by paying a little more money.

 Maghound Is Coming

To address two concerns, Chandra Johnson-Greene reports, "Members will receive their copies in the mail at roughly the same time as traditional subscriptions."  Also, "Maghound will retain complete rights to member names in order to keep customers from getting saturated with direct mail and emails from multiple publishers at the same time."

Maghound may work in the short-term; it's easy to imagine folks trying out new things.  Sooner or later, they'll likely pick the best magazines and return to traditional subscriptions, though.  And that's assuming they don't abandon paper entirely out of a preference for online content.

An interesting note: Maghound has been under development for about four years.  Time Inc. may want to look into tighter scheduling.