Digital Magazines

Eric W. Shamlin • 22nd Dec 2009 • Random Thoughts, Advertising, Random Thoughts, Random Thoughts, Science & Technology

This is something that keenly interests me. As an avid reader and part-time bibliophile I lament what seems to be the writing on the wall. Dead-tree media as it’s now, sadly, called seems to be on the way out. While book sales in general are still high, the prices too have gone up, and there’s a whole generation now that is used to getting their information in a more immediate, convenient and responsive format – blogs, the internet, etc.

Most people assume there’ll be an e-reader standard that’ll come about soon. Something that will allow you to store and read books wherever, but a device that will also wirelessly receive subscriptions. In other words, you’d pay a subscription to Time Magazine or your local paper, and instead of having a paperboy drop it off each morning, it’d be ‘beamed’ directly to your device.

There are several groups charging into the fray. Amazon seems to have an early lead with it’s Kindle, but it’s not quite caught on.

Bonnier has this prototype which I think goes quite a bit further. It’s not just about replicating the dead-tree reading experience (e-ink in the Kindle does this extremely well) but uniting that with the hyperlinks and high resolution imagery we’re used to in magazines and on the web.