California-based Next Issue Media opens Coralville office

CORALVILLE - Officials with a California-based digital magazine application company have opened a new office in Coralville.

Earlier this month, officials with Next Issue Media, a digital magazine platform owned by Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, KKR, Meredith, News Corp, Rogers Communications and Time Inc., announced Texture, a content subscription service to provide access to 160 worldwide magazines.

The Texture announcement preceded the unveiling of a Next Issue Media office at 2441 Coral Court in Coralville - adding to the company's offices in New York City and Menlo Park, Cali. The company has already hired 10 local employees and has plans for continued local expansion.

'We're putting our roots into Iowa,” said Pamela Aratani, Next Issue Media's director of digital publishing. 'We're going to start looking to expand sometime next year.”

Aratani said Next Issue Media had been outsourcing customer service positions to Iowa City for a few years now, but added responsibilities for those employees along the lines of curating and testing products - coupled with the local talent pool - led to the decision to open the company's third office in Coralville.

'We've just had such success in finding the right people ... It's been amazing how well-received we've been. I can tell you the people in Iowa City have been tremendously helpful in opening up an office,” she said, noting the help received from Iowa City Area Development Group President Mark Nolte.

Nolte said Next Issue Media officials first contacted him about one year ago and more recently, they had been working temporarily out of ICAD's Coralville CoLab space for the last few months to hire their first 10 employees and get a feel for the community.

'They kind of dipped their toe in the water and felt this was a good place to be long-term,” he said.

Nolte said Next Issue Media's Coralville office adds to a growing list of technology companies - many from California's Silicon Valley - eyeing Johnson County as a place to find quality employees.

'People are paying attention. They're starting to see what's going on in the corridor,” Nolte said. 'We're not the biggest kept secret anymore, the secret is starting to get out and we hope this is a harbinger of more things to come.”

According to a news release, the company's Coralville office will focus on content ingestion, quality assurance and ongoing testing of the app to develop content and refine the user experience of the app.

New Issue Media was founded in 2010 and provides subscription-based online access to popular magazines on a wide array of digital platforms.