Ink vs Pixels: Analog Publications in a digital world

Mobile, internet-enabled devices have made it much easier for people to get the content they want without the expense or waste that comes from printing. Magazines and newspapers continue to create content, but they are at a serious disadvantage. Printed material that was once nearly 200 pages and filled with ads, are now much slimmer, with less content.

Aggregators like Flipboard make it easy to collect and gather just the specific kind of information you are interested in, currently with over 34,000 topics from astronomy to game reviews and dating tips to photojournalism. It’s even possible to curate and publish your own “magazine,” collecting content to share as you surf the Web or other Flipboard magazines.

For traditional print content, from the New York Times to Wired Magazine, finding the right design, the right layout, the right content, and, of course, the right way to make a profit was a long, complicated road.

Except for publications like The Atlantic, a 154-year old magazine, which was doing so poorly, it had been losing millions of dollars every year for a decade. Then in 2008 The Atlantic decided to be “digital first.” http://mashable.com/2011/12/19/the-atlantic-digital-first/

“Atlantic had so serially failed that it was overwhelmingly likely the next thing we would do was fail,” owner and publisher David Bradley said, “…and the next thing we would do was fail…"

Other magazines are not doing so well. http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/aug/19/digital-magazines-popular-circulation-figures

Could it be related to the design of the digital version of the publication? Take a few moments to look at some current magazine publications and describe how the printed version differs from an online delivery of the same content. Research at least three different magazines and write about your impressions for your first post.

There’s no excuse for not actually looking at real, printed magazines. You don’t have to travel to Barnes & Noble, your local grocery store and pharmacy have well-stocked magazine racks. Of course, you’ll need to find magazines that already have a digital version.

Make sure to tell us what specific magazines you looked at and which version of the publications you think is the more successful... and why. Consider layout, amount of content per “page,” use of images and photos, and, of course, note how typographically the text is different.

For your reply, comment on an original post…looking at the same magazines and take the opposite position. (If the original poster thought that the magazines they researched were better off staying in print, argue why they would be better off as digital magazines.