Today I found out, somewhat by accident, that the first “mainstream” magazine about podcasting, ID3 Podcast Magazine, would not appear in print after all.
I had signed up to subscribe to this through Dan Klass’s website, and expected to get a print copy in the mail this month sometime. I also received a login ID and password to get access to the online features of the magazine.
When I tried to log in today, my information didn’t work. The magazine’s website didn’t recognize the information they had given me. Frustrating!
But I also found out, just by prowling around the site, that the print edition of this magazine will never come out. This is instead going to be solely an online publication, and paid subscribers will receive their money back.
This is no surprise to me, really. I always wondered whether the podcast world really had need of a paper magazine that arrived in the snail-mail every month, just like Atlantic Monthly or National Geographic. This is Web 2.0, after all! We can create radio shows that go out to the whole world and each other. We’re all subscribed to 20 or 30 bulletin boards or RSS feeds or blogs or whatever. I read the New York Times online. I link to the Washington Post whenever I can in my blog.
In contast to all this new online media, I received my subscription renewal notice in the mail yesterday for Genii, the Conjuror’s Magazine. I will renew my subscription to Genii, because it makes sense. The secrets of magic are ancient and arcane, and they resist being disseminated wholesale on the internet. (Which is not to say they cannot be found on the internet; but serious magicians deplore the internet publication of the arcana of magic and illusion.) Magicians do love their books and paper magazines.
There’s a place for old media, and there’s a place for new media. But the fate of ID3 Podcast Magazine makes me wonder further what the future of “paid” media will be.
Personally, I like getting two magazines in the post. I like holding them, flipping through them slowly, reading what I like, relaxed on my bed or couch. The first is a music magazine, Record and the second is National Geographic.
I don’t think that physical books and magazines will ever go completely out of fashion. Unless, of course, we become much less physical people than we are today. There is something very reassuring about holding a book in your hand, flipping through a magazine. I don’t get fewer magazines now that I can go online for a lot.
But I may be old-fashioned. They said that about good old letters, too. When was the last time you wrote one? When was the last time you wrote one to someone who has email?