The future of magazines

[Photo: nicolasnova]

Over the weekend, I gave my apartment a long-overdue cleaning. I was a bit shocked to discover that I had three full trashbags' worth of useless clutter scattered around the place. There was a lot of junk mail that, for some reason, never made it into the recycling. There were empty boxes left over from when I moved in August. And there were magazines, some that moved with my from my old place.

I took stock of the magazine stacks. I currently subscribe to four different periodicals—two weeklies and two monthlies. I rarely read all the articles, and generally don't mean to hang on to the back issues. Somehow, they sort of stick around and pile up.

There was a time when I'd keep a library of old Wired or National Geographic issues on my shelf, but then I began to worry I was headed down the path to hoarder land. These days, for the sake cutting down on clutter, I toss them in the recycling when the new issues arrive. (Except for The Believer. That magazine is simply too gorgeous to part with.)

I wondered about the future of periodicals. The Kindle offers text-only subscription options for many popular magazines and newspapers. Sadly, I've tried it, and it's not nearly as fun an experience you get from reading printed pages.

The iPad is just around the corner, scheduled for release in March, and will include a full-fledged bookstore at launch. It's full-color screen seems perfect for periodicals, but there has been no mention of a magazine counterpart to the iBookstore.

The New York Times unveiled its iPad app at Apple's event last month, and it looks like a fantastic marriage between the functionality of its website and elegance of the dead tree edition. If the Baltimore Sun were to create a digital version that slick, I'd subscribe to it for the first time in my life.

I'm not suggesting that the iPad will single-handedly save the newspaper industry, but I know that I'm not the only one willing to pay for a high-quality digital newspaper that recreates the print aesthetic.

Sports Illustrated does exactly that with a mockup of its magazine, and it looks amazing. If they are able to deliver the same look and feel of the printed version with the interactivity of a website, I would subscribe in a heartbeat.

Still, there's a pretty sizable technology barrier to overcome. The big publishers with more money to toss around, like Condé Nast, will build digital versions first. They'll figure out how to distribute issues. They can afford to make mistakes the rest of the industry will learn from. All the publishers will start experimenting.

Will Apple open up a magazine section to their bookstore, or will the big publishers create their own digital newsstands? How will the magazine reach multiple devices and a wider audience? Will the advent of digital magazines save niche publications from going under, the way Gourmet did last year?

Personally, if I could switch all my magazines to digital subscriptions, I'd be delighted. There would be far less clutter in my apartment, and I'd be able to keep a library of back issues. That's my dream scenario. I wonder how long it will take technology and the publishing world to get there.