The Media Drop

Earlier this week, I caught this item on MetaFilter about how the Independent Press Association had kicked the bucket, and how magazines were on the down and down. (That’s like up and up, just the other way). Of course, as big a tech-head as I am, I know that magazines aren’t a totally dying breed, just one that’s on a much sped up evolution, declawing, or whatever you want to call it.

At the time, I figured that Rex Hammock, of Hammock Publishing and rexblog.com, would have something to say, since that’s his bailiwick (ed: I’ve used that word entirely too much in the last month). Tonight, I had a chance to catch up with Rex via IM and ask him what he thought about this, and he was more than happy to point me in the right direction to some things he’s said in the past, offer some new thoughts, and point out something he blogged about just this week.

About two years ago - February, 2005 to be exact - Rex took part in an interview with Media Life’s Lorraine Sanders where he talked about why magazines matter. I won’t rehash what he said so much there as that outside of his obvious love for the industry and the medium, but I can’t agree more with his thoughts about how things such as JPG magazine offer something that just can’t be recreated online, at least not yet, even though it’s all about digital photography.

Rex also pointed me to this item from just two days ago, where he linked to a review of a new book, The Last Magazine, which talks about this very topic. You’ll get a kick out of his quote, too.

“Magazines that people display on coffee tables will exist as long as there are coffee tables.”

Ain’t that the truth.

While chatting tonight, Rex told me that “magazines will have a long goodbye.” That’s important, because he’s intentionally non specific, nor should he be. I brought up a magazine that I’m a big fan of, one that I not only love to read on planes, but love to keep around, Dwell. On that topic, Hammock said that he “think(s) that the aesthetics of magazines will grow more important — the “experience” of something like Dwell is what makes the medium unique.” If you’ve ever picked up that publication - or a number of others at its level - you’ll notice there is something to every little nook and cranny, including the paper’s feel on your fingertips. At least at the moment, you can’t replace that. “Experience” is just the right word for it. Sure, Dwell can do a lot online, and they have a big, fresh site - but it isn’t the same thing as the paper pub. On the other types of magazines, including “information” focused ones, he says that they “will (are) be supplanted by the Web.) We’ve seen that particular thing happen over and over again, but that probably won’t stop people from opening those publications anew.

So are (will) magazines die off? Sure. Is it any different from a lot of other spaces and types of publications? Not so much. It’s all about if the publishers of said publications can adapt and provide the great content they currently do to their readership in a fashion that the readership wants, can use, or needs. If it needs to be bite sized, some people will figure that out and do so. Others won’t, and will vanish, probably quickly. As for the rest of it, I would say that, and did tonight with Rex, that those who are the most technologically hardcore, of which I’d consider myself party, might be the ones who “save” some of the publications on paper that are hurting right now, because we might be the ones who don’t take them as much for granted when we pick up a publication and sit down and pour through its pages.