amazon announced earlier this year that their sales are better for kindle books compared to regular print books. it’s no surprise, right? paper is losing ground: books are becoming obsolete while glossies are fighting lack of ads and the natural communication delay that comes with the monthly issue.
i see print fashion magazines dying to the song of the online. i get the fixation with the beautiful glossy that’s the equivalent of a chocolate cake but better: it takes you to a better place without all the calories. but print cannot beat the speed of communication, interactivity and independence of the online. i am a magazine freak but i’m happily going with the flow on this one. i think ipads (and other tablets) will be the magazine of the future which will satisfy the need of traditionalists of having and holding the magazine.
with regard to the money issue: no matter how high online-related costs are, i think they at least take out the guesswork from the how many people will buy my glossy this month? dilemma and whatever needs modifying can quite easily be changed.
and, let’s not forget the increasingly important green issue: no trees are needed for the online as all you get is pixels.
also, so far, it’s completely free! and you know how i hate the magazines over-charging me for some insufficiently original content bubble wrapped in a whole lot of ads.
among the visionaries who foresaw this situation is vogue as their online alter ego, vogue.com has recently turned 15. that’s soon old enough to get a drink! haha! so they started in 1996. wow! no wonder they are leading the pack: vogue has vision!
vogue.com provides different content that its print sister and has (of course) a different editorial team, including an ever changing group of bloggers. they are offering a wide range of fashion-related content, but also write on arts, politics, culture, design, parties, etc. in case you are interested in the extended vogue family, scroll down for the japanese, british, indian versions, etc. use the online translation tools to read the varied and very interesting content! you’ll love it!
the local glossies are trying to catch up the romanian way: they’re trying to get major output with little input. a couple of them recently disappeared. most of them have online versions that recycle old content and some news/advertorials and are trying to spice things up by asking their writers to keep blogs… you know that i gave up buying any romanian magazines on december 1st. i don’t miss them. that’s sad. i wonder if i’m actually missing anything…
smart magazines are eager to change in order to fit the shape-shifting world we live in. as a wise man said: adapt or die!
