[mturro: in plain sight] - Latest Comments in Thoughts On The Future of Magazines

Re: Thoughts On The Future of Magazines

mturro — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:10:21 -0000

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Re: Thoughts On The Future of Magazines

Michael Turro — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:57:19 -0000

Bo-
I think we are definitely barking up the same tree... we're just focused on different branches. Believe me I do understand that "publishers now have many ways to use their collective franchise of content" - that is sort of a basic theme in my post. Those ways are going to gain in influence and value, slowly outshining the linear print experience.

Where we differ - and this is purely a matter of speculation - is that I just don't see linearity holding its value in the digital world. The idea of beginning, middle, end is not so much a core trait of the magazine as it is of the print medium. Unfortunately linearity isn't a core trait of digital information. Digital natives just won't/don't relish it the same way you and I do. The way they interact with information is fundamentally different than the ways in which the preceding generations have. For them, the last 600 years don't really mean squat. Young minds are being patterned by network and publishers who hope to speak with them must understand and publish inside that pattern.

We are indeed witnessing unprecedented changes in in technology that are having a profound effect on publishing... there's no real telling how it will play out... what devices and technologies will become the new standards... the new paper. In light of that, do you really think it's wise to try and force the outline of the old medium onto the youthful and evolving bones of the new?

Re: Thoughts On The Future of Magazines

BoSacks — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 08:27:54 -0000

Interesting postulating and I agree with some of what you say. Indeed the majority of the future of communication and information distribution will be of a digital nature. And your descriptive nature of “a collaborative, evolving document is entirely foreign to the print experience.” You are correct here as well. Print is not digital. Here I think we can agree.

The point you are missing is that publishers now have many ways to use their collective franchise of content. Community is one, endlessly revised web pages without end is another. But it has taken 600 years to perfect a magazine. The beauty of such tried and true design is that it has a beginning, middle and an end. There is a comfort level in that design, and in that process and commitment, by both the reader and the publisher.

As an example I have read the NY times on-line for years. My preferred path is using newsstand.com. The exact replication of the printed version. Why? Because like a reader of any special interest publication, I want the ads and format that challenges me to read the stories that I might have missed in the web style version. I enjoy the digital flipping of pages, scanning for this and that. I enjoy starting the “paper” in the beginning, getting to the middle of it, and finally finishing it. That last statement can not be said of most if any web sites.

So I say to your observation that there is room for both paths of information distribution. Which one will rule dominant is yet to be determined. The internet and with it this new digital style of publishing is still in its infancy. New hardware, will also affect the methods of reading. E-paper might be as powerful an event as movable type.

Time only will tell how we progress, and what the reading public will finally find true comfort in.
BoSacks
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Re: Thoughts On The Future of Magazines

Deb — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:32:33 -0000

Michael, I agree with you. Print publishing will never map cleanly to digital publishing, but why should it? What I am finding is that in the digital world conversational, continuous, and collaborative are certainly must-haves.