Disqus - Latest Comments for BoSacks

Re: The Magazine and The Mobile Web

BoSacks — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:58:20 -0000

Michael: Very well stated and I agree.
I wrote the following yesterday on my Blog and reading yours today, it seemed that they could fit together.

BoSacks
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The real issues facing some of my print friends and pundits, is that they seem to forget that it is actually the words, the journalism, the thinking, and the final distribution of that wisdom, that contains any meaningful importance. Why does it matter so much if it is paper or plastic? What is the difference? Who really cares?

I’m on my 5th Palm ebook now and here is what I have found. The words are a transportation device. The words take you wherever a good author or journalist intended you go. It doesn’t matter to the transportation system, what the substrate is, could be paper could be plastic. Words don't know and don't care how they are read. They just want to be understood

Re: Will evolution kill the magazine?

BoSacks — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:14:24 -0000

Planning for the future is a good thing. But remember that nature abhors a vacuum. If we continue to have free commerce then somebody is going to make a living selling words. I can't say how those monitized words will be sent or recieved, but sent they will be.

Where's da money? somewhere for sure.

Bo
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Re: Will evolution kill the magazine?

BoSacks — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:22:28 -0000

Michael:
Yes I will stand with my original hypothesis. In the future there will be many types of reading experiences. Most will be digital some will be on dead trees. Some digital experiences will be community based development and some not. In the future not all publishing will be in a magazine format. What is the magazine Format? That would be edited, paginated, designed and dated. And if it doesn’t have these attributes, it’s not a magazine. It is….. something else… a web page, a blog, a mlog, a random compilation of thoughts, information and data.

I think in the future there will be plenty of magazines. Somewhat like the format that has taken 600 years to perfect. The only thing we are missing today for excellent execution is the right mechanical platform. It is coming, but it is not here yet. And we agree, there needs to be new business plans with the new models of distribution.

Re: How magazines (the original social media) squandered their position and (almost) screwed the pooch with regard to the web.

BoSacks — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:49:09 -0000

Michael:

You couldn’t be more correct. It is arrogance peppered with a complete lack of understanding. You can’t build a business plan on a platform you don’t know about and don’t use. Senior management doesn’t use the Internet and don’t fathom the depths that it can go to.

I loved your rant. It is right on, and I wish to but you a cup of coffee or a shot of tequila. Whichever seems best for an ongoing conversation.
BoSacks
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Re: Thoughts On The Future of Magazines

BoSacks — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:27:54 -0000

Interesting postulating and I agree with some of what you say. Indeed the majority of the future of communication and information distribution will be of a digital nature. And your descriptive nature of “a collaborative, evolving document is entirely foreign to the print experience.” You are correct here as well. Print is not digital. Here I think we can agree.

The point you are missing is that publishers now have many ways to use their collective franchise of content. Community is one, endlessly revised web pages without end is another. But it has taken 600 years to perfect a magazine. The beauty of such tried and true design is that it has a beginning, middle and an end. There is a comfort level in that design, and in that process and commitment, by both the reader and the publisher.

As an example I have read the NY times on-line for years. My preferred path is using newsstand.com. The exact replication of the printed version. Why? Because like a reader of any special interest publication, I want the ads and format that challenges me to read the stories that I might have missed in the web style version. I enjoy the digital flipping of pages, scanning for this and that. I enjoy starting the “paper” in the beginning, getting to the middle of it, and finally finishing it. That last statement can not be said of most if any web sites.

So I say to your observation that there is room for both paths of information distribution. Which one will rule dominant is yet to be determined. The internet and with it this new digital style of publishing is still in its infancy. New hardware, will also affect the methods of reading. E-paper might be as powerful an event as movable type.

Time only will tell how we progress, and what the reading public will finally find true comfort in.
BoSacks
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