A very interesting article – two articles, actually – crossed my screen this morning in an email newsletter from the trade publication Writer’s Digest. Their website brought together two gurus of the magazine world, both men whose writings I’ve followed and admired for a long time. Bob Sacks, known as BoSacks, offers some astute observations about the print industry. Some excerpts from his part of the article, titled “It’s a Digital World Now”:
“A basic modern assumption is that things will be as they are, only more so—that is, that we’ll still have the same needs, wants and desires as our forefathers, but we’ll continually satisfy those needs faster and more efficiently.”
“Gutenberg created movable type and an industry was born—the rapid distribution of information as never before achieved, nor dreamed possible.”
“What Gutenberg actually achieved was the democratization of knowledge. Does that concept sound familiar?”
“Where does the importance really lie—in the creation of thoughts and words or the substrate on which they rest and are read?”
“There’s a new product called e-paper that combines the best of the new and the old media through the use of thin, lightweight and flexible displays that simulate traditional paper while providing the immediacy and versatility of a computer screen.”
Bob Sacks’ article gets really interesting from that point, and it’s worth reading his explanation of this new technology, which is already being utilized in Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader, as well as screens in cellphones, PDAs, and pagers. He predicts the face of publishing and reading will permanently change as researchers and corporations continue to pursue this new technology.
The flip side of the argument comes from Samir Husni, nicknamed “Mr. Magazine,” and another well-respected expert in the world of publishing. His article, optimistically titled “The Death of Magazines and Other Fairy Tales,” begins with a fun poke at the naysayers, but then he gets down to business: “Last year’s new magazine launches totaled 715. That’s an average of nearly two new magazines each day, which is substantially higher than the number of new launches in 1991, the first year that commercial use of the Internet was allowed.”
Wow – that was a bit of an unexpected wake-up call: The Internet has only been commercially viable since 1991? Only 17 years? I’ll have to study that one a little more later. But for now, back to “Mr. Magazine,” who points out:
“Customers feel an attachment to print because holding a real magazine and tangibly feeling what you paid for is much more fulfilling than turning on your Kindle or e-reader and reading a digital-rights managed copy of something. Magazines provide ownership; magazines provide connections between advertisers, readers and products; magazines provide a vehicle for quality content and purposeful design…”
As a magazine publisher I think both men make good points, and it will be interesting to see what the world of publication looks like another ten years down the road.
