Good luck, if you think the future of magazines is this touchscreen uber-Kindle. Of course, it might be exactly like this. Except there will be ads you can’t fast-forward through. And you’re going to have to watch that cover animation EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU LOAD THE ISSUE, just like the start of a DVD.
And speaking of DVDs, I hope you like opening a magazine and clicking through multiple pages of copyright notices that can’t be ignored. And “special offers” for other magazines by the same publisher.
And every time a friend shares an article with you, I hope you love the legalese that “Sports Illustrated does not endorse the opinions that may be emailed herein.”
Also, if it is exactly like this, with this much content, and this little annoyance, and this few ads … well, I hope you like paying $500 a month for your magazine.
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5 comments
Mikatron says:
9 December 2009 at 10:51 am (UTC -5)
I guess we’ll just have to stick with a good ol’newspaper…
Oh wait! No one reads those anymore!!!
Matt Goerzen says:
9 December 2009 at 10:58 am (UTC -5)
@ Mikatron… and that is why people are generally becoming dumber….
Seriously though Grant, I have to agree. Nice technology, but there’s no way they’re going to make this easy for the consumer.
Grant Hamilton says:
9 December 2009 at 2:29 pm (UTC -5)
Declining newspaper readership aside (I would argue that, forget the paper, NEWS readership is waaaay up) I have high hopes for the future of digital journalism
But this ain’t it. It’s too …. curated … for lack of a better word.
To my eye, this is like Warner Music preparing an ad for an ipod in the late 90s — it would showcase a single artist’s albums, with extra digital content like live shows and behind-the-scenes and maybe an online game. But if you wanted David Bowie as well as U2, you’d have to buy another ipod.
What do people actually do with ipods? Well, they buy fewer albums, and have gone back to the single. But they download podcasts, and mashups and share playlists.
Apple is apparently shopping around a digital tablet that might do the same thing for print that it did for music. You’ll get the power to make your own news “playlist”, one story at a time, rather than depending on a news organization to sell it to you by the edition.
Colin says:
9 December 2009 at 3:22 pm (UTC -5)
Print does one thing very well. This was shown cleverly in that British “Sun” ad you posted a while back.
Digital does its own thing very well. The wisdom comes in knowing (and respecting) the difference. Flailing about blindly is not an option.
thebanana says:
9 December 2009 at 6:59 pm (UTC -5)
Any gizmo that forces me to watch commercials will never cross my doorstep.