Online newsstand Zinio, which makes magazines including MacUser available on screen to digital subscribers via web browsers and iOS devices, has announced it’s nearing a resolution to the technical breakdown that has shut out users from all of its services for several days. The company says it was not hacked and no customer data has been compromised.
Zinio contacted publishers earlier in the week to warn that some servers were inaccessible and publication dates for upcoming titles could be delayed, while using its WordPress.com blog and Twitter account to update users. However, the cause of the problem at one of the company’s data centres remains unknown, with Zinio currently saying “we continue our investigation into the root cause of our service failure. This may take time.” Glitches were first experienced during the last weekend of February, but it’s unclear whether these were related to the later, more serious outage.
A statement released last night said:
Our services remain offline. A detailed update is provided below. Please bear with us!
Is Zinio on target to restore services sometime on Saturday March 5, 2011?
Yes! We are on track, and we expect to return to full operations at that time. There is a chance that this timing could change (earlier or later) and we will keep you posted.
The outage is the first serious failure experienced by the company in a decade. Chief marketing officer Jeanniey Mullen told MacUser: “We are so diligently working on addressing these issues, both for short-term fixes and long-term enhancements” to prevent future interruptions. Zinio has assured customers that “none of our customer data has been lost or compromised”, and thanks to secure backups “all account and customer data will restore safe and intact”.
Subscribers will receive all overdue magazines, including the 4 March edition of MacUser, once service is resumed.
