MagBlog

The paragraphs below are from a comment to a post on Khoi Vihn's subtraction blog. The post itself was about how current iPad iterations of magazines aren't really working very well.

It caught my attention because I think the writer has identified a large element of what makes magazines different. If you accept this, you can perhaps start to think about different ways of delivering that kind of content, different frequencies and quantities of delivery and, as another comment suggests, different ways of rewarding reader behaviour (in the same sense that Gowalla and Foursquare "reward" users.

"From my limited perspective, it seems like magazines are unique in their combination of rich art and photos (compared to newspapers), great content layout, focus on a niche, and in-depth articles.  I think the idea of an ‘issue’ collecting various articles together once a month is more of an outdated constraint from the print era than something that consistently provides value in and of itself.

"If you look at it that way, then I think ‘magazines’ as a content-rich source of detailed information about a narrow interest are great. I don’t know if there are any publishers willing to take that far a step back to realize it and act on it though. This may be a golden opportunity for a new wave of tiny media startups without the overhead of traditional publishers."

A lovely post from MagForum here, looking at great magazines and magazine editors of the 20th Century. I posted something on these lines last year but this is much, much better!


http://magforum.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/the-best-in-magazines-of-the-20th-century