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1.  

   

   J. Marcus Xavier, Sep 7th, 2006 @ 5:35pm

   
   

   Tunnel Vision

   They just don't get it. You can't blame these folks so much for silliness like this, they've been dealing with print for all their lives. But seriously, everything you point out here is right. It's just plain DUMB to think that this will work. If you want to get a lot of people reading your content, you make it as *easy* to access, trade, forward, rehash, and move around as you possibly can. You don’t put barriers up to preserve your outdated notions of what a magazine should be, you transform your content and take it to your audience--wherever and *however* they are comfortable with it.
   
   Well, they'll either figure it out or go out of business. I'm not losing any sleep over it; I get more than enough information and articles online, and I can talk to the authors of that content, to boot.
   
   ~ J. Marcus Xavier
   Executive Producer of the Silent Universe Podcast

    

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2.  

   

   Anonymous Coward, Sep 7th, 2006 @ 7:06pm

   
   

   A good example

   Granted, it's not a traditional print magazine, but a good example (to me) of a "online magazine" is here:
   http://www.escapistmagazine.com/
   
   It has the "look" of a magazine, but is easy to navigate, has ads (although they don't use them badly), and most importantly, is pretty standard html type pages.

    

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3.  

   

   Gavin, Sep 7th, 2006 @ 11:15pm

   
   

   Blargh

   Magazines exist so you can read them on the crapper. Who wants to take their laptop in there? Certainly no me...

    

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4.  

   

   Benji, Sep 7th, 2006 @ 11:43pm

   
   

   Maybe ask a college student.

   Sometimes I think that industry execs should just ask. They seem to spend tons of money on research and surveys that apperently arnt working. We want information that me can interact with. We want a magazine that we can have on our comuter and phone and heven forbid, if it's really good, beam it to our friends phone. We want it available on all the devices. Making it harder by having special software is only gonna fly one way. It's gotta be so awsome that everyone has to have it. Obviously this is not content that we must have. So if it's content that we'd like to have, make it easy to get and easy to share. Sharing is so key to my use of content. If I like a page I send links to my friends. If something is clever or cool looking, I pass it on. But if it's hard to get at... I don't even see it.

    

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5.  

   

   reality checker, Sep 8th, 2006 @ 6:46am

   
   

   stupid

   could they be stupider?

    

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6.  

   

   ebrke, Sep 8th, 2006 @ 7:55am

   
   

   It's more than just thinking outside the box

   Magazines' whole presentation is geared to people like me, I think, readers (probably middle-aged, sorry kids) who really read. We have print in front of us, we read it, we may go back and reread a paragraph in a long article to be sure we understood a particular point, etc. For reasons like this, I find myself impatient with the increasing amount of video reporting on websites--I don't want to be talked at, I want to READ.
   
   Okay, I know this puts me hopelessly behind where communications seems to be going, but I think it's also the place where magazine publishers are stuck.

    

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7.  

   

   dislikes geek squad, Sep 8th, 2006 @ 8:52am

   
   

   Re: Blargh

   if i had a lap top with wifi I would take it to the crapper in a heart beat, hell my best idea's happen in there.

    

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8.  

   

   My Hot or Not, Sep 8th, 2006 @ 9:14am

   
   

   Hmm

   They should go after the college kids directly through MySpace.

    

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9.  

   

   ConceptJunkie (profile), Sep 8th, 2006 @ 10:24am

   
   

   Re: It's more than just thinking outside the box

   Similarly, the move to online content somehow translates into shorter and shorter articles. These days, a typical Web news article is little more than a summary.
   
   I think I fall in the same category as you... I want to _READ_ something. Pictures are great... and very important for many topics. However, the meat, the content, is in the copy.
   
   I guess we are a vanishing breed.

    

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