Om Malik picked up an issue of Primedia’s Connected magazine and was so disgusted by its lack of good gadget news and insight that he did what no other angry internet writer would dare to do — he wrote a blog entry. Fortunately, Om knows what he’s talking about, especially when he compliments me and my online colleagues by claiming that a simple aggregation of a few blogs collectively kicks the ass of almost any dead tree magazine around. What’s more useful to you: publications with 90 day lead times or blogs that measure scoop time by the minute? Thank god there are a few magazines out there doing it right. I was pleasantly surprised by Mobile PC Magazine’s recent laptop comparison issue that used the paper format to show life-sized pictures of each notebook’s keyboard — exactly the sort of thing that leverages (synergizes!) the strengths of the paper medium. But for up to the minute news, what’s the point? The internet wounded magazines years ago, and blogs have refined the technique to a deadly art.
(P.S. Magazine editors, I am available for freelance.)
Read [GigaOm]
