Dan Blank: Publishing, Innovation & the Web

I love magazines. I have found that as I spend more time reading articles and blogs on the web, my magazine consumption has become even more sacred to me. The web may be a conversation, but magazines are cozy.

How do I love magazines? Let me count the ways:

• They offer depth.
  I love reading articles that go on forever. Especially when they are on topics I have zero experience with. This is why I love The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. They expand my world.

• They are not as needy as other media.
  Let’s face it… newspapers and my RSS feeds are both incredibly needy. If I don’t finish a paper by the end of the day, another gets stacked on top of it. Same with RSS feeds, which I have 100 of right now. I really can’t take a day off. Magazine on the other hand are weekly or monthly. They wait patiently for me to get to them.

• They are beautiful.
  Even though I spend most of my time with magazines reading plain old text, I am always struck at the visual nature of the medium. Neither newspapers or the web gives me such large, glossy photos of compelling imagery. (though the web is catching up.)

  There can also be an elegance to the overall design. Magazines are a great way to package information - there is a sense of wholeness to it.

  As the media industry continues to take a hit due to new media, I think there will be a resurgence in the craft of magazines.

• They are cheap.
  I discovered subscriptions via ebay, and am consistently shocked at how cheap it is to subscribe to a magazine. How can you pass up 4 years of Rolling Stone for $8. You simply can’t.

• They ask nothing of me
  Must everything be “social?” Must everything poke, prod and flash? It’s nice not having ads trying to convince me to click on them, or millions of other links enticing me. I am allowed to digest an article or thought, instead of thinking about adding a comment, or other immediate reaction.

• They are cozy
  When I read online, I am jumping between sites, thoughts and services. Sitting down with a magazine in a chair is a commitment. And really, its not just a commitment to the magazine, but to the topic, and to myself.