As the music industry grapples with consumers weaned on iPods and MP3s, music magazines are dealing with a similar shift of their own, writes Dylan Stableford:

When The Fader recently announced that it would distribute its summer issue via iTunes - making it the first magazine ever to do so - it wasn't terribly surprising. Magazine executives have been talking for years about digital distribution - how their brands will be what survives long after the last of the "magazine" readers die off, rendering magazines a novelty popular with kids who remember seeing them on eBay.

And that's saying nothing of the underwhelming sale of Spin and subsequent struggle to integrate a new editor; music magazines' continued loss of advertising revenue; and the closing of niche, yet well-regarded titles like Circus and Grooves.

What was surprising, though, was that it was 85,000-circulation The Fader - not Rolling Stone, not Vibe, not Billboard, not any of the countless national magazines with their ubiquitous "music" issues - that hooked up with iTunes first.

More here.