I’ve always been a bit of a magazine fetishist. Over the years, some favorites have included rags like The Face, I.D., i-D, Wired, Surface, and many more. Lately I like Radar. Although they got a little too fanboy/fangirlish sometimes, they present some pretty amusing skews on pop media. All of our magazine content frustrations are now over, though, thanks to MagCloud. If you can create a PDF and setup a PayPal account, you can start a magazine. They take care of the printing, mailing, and subscription management. The profit model is based on the same idea as services like CafePress. You design the product and (over)price it, they manufacture, bill, and ship. Pretty cool. They’re still in Beta, but don’t be surprised to find a print version of Dissociated Press for sale soon.

According to their “About” page, MagCloud is: an HP Labs research project evaluating new web services that will provide small independent magazine publishers, online content owners, and small businesses the ability to custom publish digitized magazines and economically print and fulfill on demand.