I bought a magazine on Saturday, for the first time in many a month. The magazine in question was Business Week. I used to subscribe to the dead trees edition, and have sometimes regretted letting my subscription lapse. Although I can read BW Online, longer articles read better on paper, at least in my ancient eyes.
My purchase was prompted by two main things: I was about to go on a longish flight, and I saw Bruce Nussbaum’s post on the redesign of BW.
I’ve been part of a secret process of reinventing the magazine medium that will be unveiled on Friday when a new kind of Business Week hits the stands… We wanted to go beyond a redesign and do a rethink of how people get information and analysis today, given the web and the way we live and work.
The result, as I look on the wall and see it take life, is a new kind of print medium that I think will be the model for magazines to copy in the years ahead.
I find that post rather more impressive than the reinvented magazine it persauded me to buy. My main comment is that BW is trying too hard to “brief” its readers in the print edition. But I read paper because it is a good medium for articles, books, and other longer stuff. If I want brief, I’d rather read it on the screen, probably via the web.
As I typed in the above on the plane for later posting, I was sure that I wouldn’t be alone in this reaction. Sure enough, Joe Wickert’s remarks are similar to mine, although more extensively and vigorously expressed.
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