Tempo Media Group's Tempo Store a Haven for History Buffs and News Junkies

In case you haven't noticed, Tempo Media Group has recently launched its digital store for back issues of its collections of magazines, daily newspapers, photos, books, and research papers published by the group, and any digital asset that the group has produced over the years. The store also acts as a reseller for partners of the group who wish to sell their own digital items.

The Tempo digital store hosts more than 1.2 million photos dating back to 1971, more than 1900 issues of Tempo weekly news magazine, over 600 issues of the English edition of Tempo magazine, 4200 issues of the Tempo daily newspaper, and dozens of issues of other magazine titles. The group is said to be in the process of digitizing all of its 2.6 million photos to be made available for purchase through the store with 250 photos being added to the store each day.

Magazines cost around Rp 30,000 (USD 3.5), newspapers Rp 3,000 per issue, while prices for books, infographics, and research papers vary. Low resolution photos are free but high resolution ones cost up to Rp 500,000. Free photos are naturally licensed only for personal use. The store also sells video footages starting from Rp 350,000 each.

Customers can make their purchases by creating a Tempo ID which can be used across all of Tempo's publicly accessible digital properties. The store accepts payments through ATM, credit card, BCA KlikPay, Mandiri ClickPay, as well as Kaskus' KasPay. Customers can also leave a deposit on the site as a prepayment for future purchases.

The interesting part is that for ATM payments, Tempo is piggybacking on Telkom's merchant ID on various ATMs by different banks. In other words, if you choose to pay for your Tempo store purchases through an ATM from any bank, you'll find yourself navigating through the menus for Telkom products before entering Tempo's account number.

The Tempo store also acts as a reseller for approved partners but not as a marketplace. The store will allow the sale of certain non-Tempo Group products and will take a share of the revenue for each item sold through its store but partners will not have their own space.

As a prominent media group with massive journalistic assets, the opening of the Tempo digital store opens up a wealth of information which is invaluable for anyone inside and outside of the journalistic field. Its biggest draw cards are of course the photographs and the back issue magazines.

While it claims to be making all of its magazines dating back to 1971, currently the oldest issue available is from October 1998 which coincidentally covers the May 1998 tragedy, a horrific period in this nation's history which became a significant political turning point. No doubt the group will add older issues into the store eventually.

Imagine being able to own copies of historical photographs, comparing photos of historical locations, building your own collection of news clippings over the years, tracking events and figures, quotes and columns, editorials and opinions, all through the lenses and coverage of one of the country's most respected news publications. Tempo's digital store is undoubtedly an expansive window to everything that has happened in this country.