From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Sat Aug 10 2002 - 08:38:16 MDT
I'd buy it. I enjoy magazines. I used to buy many in the pre-web
cyberculture era, my favorites being SciFi Eye, Mondo 2000, 21C, early
Wired's.
"estropico" <estropico@virgilio.it> wrote:
> The idea rests on three assumptions:
>
> 1.There is a market out there for such a magazine (I realise that an initial
> circulation of a very few hundreds would be a success)
> 2. People are willing to pay for a magazine mostly made up (at least at the
> beginning) of articles freely available on the web
> 3. The above-mentioned organisations are willing to offer their material for
> free (their only gain being the publicity)
I'm willing to pay for content otherwise freely available on the web,
specifically because I would much prefer to read longer articles
(especially technical articles) in print form. I wouldn't pay much if
html pages were just printed out and stapled together, I'd pay $10/issue
if the considerably higher resolution of print was put to good effect.
I'd suggest making a real magazine and getting a graphic designer who
isn't high on psychedelics to layout each and every page in photoshop or
something.
Content-wise, I would like a mix of extropian/transhumanist material
with business and technical material (articles on xml, for example).
Maybe reserve a small portion for comics, short fiction, poetry, etc.
Content that mixes scifi and/or singularity scenarios with hard
technical data and doable software tips might be inspiring. I'd prefer
no long political polemics.
> What I have in mind is a quarterly, not-for-profit publication, available
> internationally, sold mostly on the web, but also available at some physical
> location (specialist bookshops and wherever it's possible to have it
> commercially distributed, but this might be something to consider if and when
> the mag grows in popularity).
Hmmm, I wouldn't mind monthly (but agree bimonthly or quarterly more
doable), for profit, and a definite yes to bookstore placement. Borders
seems to stock all sorts of magazines, I would think they'd be open to
it.
The ideal? The physical form factor and binding of 21C, a table of
contents placement from Business 2.0, a readable design with
easy-on-the-eyes fonts (maybe take a look at Bruce Sterling's Whole
Earth issue, though I'd prefer a little denser) and avoidance of
high-tech expensive toy articles. Put the ads in groups or (even better)
all in the back except for maybe right-hand pages when an article ends
on the left-hand page. I also hate those ads for some graphic product
where a screaming human's eyes are replaced by more screaming mouths;
they creep me out. Otherwise edgy is fine. But don't put 'Transhuman' on
the cover, call it 'CyberWeb' or something. (Make sure you can get the
domain name).
-Mike
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