‘Technology Review magazine plans to announce a new service today that enables users to download an exact replica of the magazine to read at their leisure, placing the magazine among a fast-growing crowd of publications using this form of online distribution.

Compared with typical Web publishing, which uses formats designed specifically for reading on a computer screen, Technology Review and other publishers are transmitting electronic copies of their printed pages. Publishers see this service — variously called digital delivery, digital replicas or electronic editions — as a way to build both advertising and circulation revenue when few companies have been performing well in either category. And since digital delivery incurs negligible additional costs beyond the print version, publishers are greeting this new technology with an attitude of “why not?” ‘ NY Times