The Future of Magazines?
Have you heard of Mygazines.com? Up until recently, I didn’t know it existed, and the only reason I’m even aware of it is a slight publishing industry buzz about the site’s activities. The fact that it wasn’t previously on my radar probably tells you something about what I do online. rather, what I don’t do.
You see, Mygazines is a content pirate, and print magazines/publications are its preferred targets. It lets its members (free) upload digital versions of print materials, which the service allows if the member “purchased” the content. And I guess buying a copy from a newsstand qualifies, judging from the site’s growing collection.
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Is that “purchase” rule really a loophole to allow the site to get away with it? No. The fact that the site’s owners and operations are outside the US is. Well, not a loophole, really, but one heck of a hurdle, if not a barrier (I am not a lawyer). It’s a sure thing that the big boys whose content’s getting pilfered are working hard to end this little party. It should be really interesting to watch this story play out.
But that’s not the point of this post. It’s the tech. The way Mygazines uses Flash to deliver the magazines online is pretty slick and impressive; although I’ve seen this kind of “online digital magazine” presentation before, I believe this is the first time I’ve seen it Flashed.
The site is also quite smart features-wise… it let’s you assemble your own digital magazine using bits and pieces of content from whatever’s been uploaded and stored on their system. Hmmmm.
The service, frankly, is pretty impressive and has tremendous promise. Too bad they’re thieves.
So, for our purposes (mine, anyway), seeing this brings up the question: Is this tech what magazines are going to be in the not-so-distant future?
Maybe. But personally, I don’t think so. The reading experience just isn’t the same, no matter what the practical benefits are by having mags online this way.
Instead, if I had to put money down on something now, it’d be on a platform somewhere along the lines of a larger, full-color Amazon Kindle, something that connects wirelessly to the Web (can you imagine what that would mean to magazine advertisers?). Heck, maybe Kindle can deliver at least some of that right now, but I wouldn’t know first-hand — I’m still waiting for it to drop below $100, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon.
Thoughts? — EES
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