Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith (NYSE: MDP), News Corp (NYSE: NWS). and Time Inc. are making it formal: the five publishers are equity partners in a new digital publishing venture with grand designs. They want nothing less than to develop open standards for cross-platform e-reader technology, advertising and digital sales—and they’re going to put their brands behind it. Together, the company says the five represent an unduplicated audience of 144.6 million. 

It only seems like we’ve been hearing about a digital magazine consortium for ages, according to John Squires, the interim managing director. “There’s been a lot drum roll for it but it hasn’t been been that long.” After some chatter, the effort came together over the past four months. The Time Inc. vet has been in the mix all along and is now one of the candidates for CEO of the nameless venture being announced this morning. Squires is leaving Time Inc. to serve as interim director while the CEO search is conducted. “Hopefully, I’ll be CEO,” he told paidContent during an interview.

Squires said there are no plans to take on further equity partners but they’re talking to client partners. No numbers from Squires or others involved on how much the five partners are investing. He calls it “enough to give us a good start.” He also isn’t talking about staff size, although he is hiring for a Manhattan office. A company name? That probably will wait until there’s a product.

—Other groups: Squires isn’t stressing over possible competition or complications from others, including efforts that might involve the partners. News Corp. is still working on its own consortium, for instance. “I don’t know that that’s relevant to us. We’ve got an incredible group of companies behind us. We know what we want to produce. ... I don’t think there’s a question of how many. It’s a question of which ones bring the right product to market..”

Four key goals: The venture has four key goals initially:

—Be ready for full-color devices with an application that renders publications “in beautiful form” and in “recognizable” form.

—Develop a platform that can enable that across multiple devices, operating systems and screens. 

—Develop a common digital storefront where consumers can easily make purchases and get universal access on any device as they buy digital products from their publisher.

—Work with advertisers to co-develop new advertising forms that Squires expects will be more immersive with the power of digital delivery. “This has the potential to be a new and vastly important branding medium for advertisers, particularly with larger screen devices.”

—Business model: “We want to develop a system providing very attractive commercial terms.” Revenue will come from content and advertising sales plus print sub sales. Squires won’t identify potential clients who have expressed an interest: “I don’t want to fall into that trap.”

—Partners have own projects: As we’ve detailed here, the equity parters already have numerous efforts underway. Two were highlighted last week just ahead of this announcement: Hearst’s Skiff, which plans its own digital newsstand, and platform, and Time Inc’s editorial development of a tablet/e-reader format. Squires doesn’t see it as either-or—or see the other efforts as automaticly being part of this venture. “We’re respectful of those efforts and we’ll look at them in time but we’d like to provide the format and standards.”  On the creative side, which Squires says he’s not too worried about for now, “the product that Terry (McDonell at Time Inc.)  envisions and that the Wired people envision are very much the projects we want to enable for the industry.” He added: “We’re not trying to develop a new format. We would like to be able to be provision for Terry’s product and help it come alive.”

• Magazine Consortium Will Launch With Five Partners: News Corp, Hearst, Time, Conde, Meredith
• Time Inc. Close To Magazine JV With Rival Publishers
• Updated: The Hulu Complex: Mag Industry Looking At Its Own JV, Headed by Time Inc
• Hearst’s Skiff Plans To Set Sail Next Year With E-Reader Platform, Devices—And Sprint Deal
• Yahoo Newspaper Consortium Has Generated Estimated $50 Million In Revenues