Bauguin continued by describing HDS Digital's growth. He said, "HDS Digital started in August 2006 with 60 titles from 20 publishers and on two websites (Relay.com and VirginMega.fr). Today, HDS Digital is offering 500 magazines from 200 publishers and 300 e-Books -- a new business started in September 2008 -- on seven websites." It has plenty of members as well. As Bauguin said, "HDS Digital has 200,000 members, and its number of downloads per month has increased."

It's not easy making money selling content, but it seems that HDS Digital has tapped into an important insight about how consumers buy digital content. According to Bauguin, "HDS Digital's conviction is that we must sell digital content differently than in the physical world. The consumer is not easily willing to pay for content on the Internet: The only solution is to create a new strong and sexy Unique Selling Proposition (USP)."

What is HDS Digital USP? As Bauguin explained, "That's why we invented the first worldwide unlimited offer for magazines in April 2008: You can subscribe for €17,90 per month, and you download all the magazines you want. This offer is co-branded with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), to which we give back €1 per subscriber per month for a reforestation program in New-Caledonia."

At HDS Digital, green is green (or whatever color euros come in).

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. His eighth book is You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.