We Want Media

Every now and then, I like to indulge in my girlie side. I grab my bottle of nail polish in “Rouge Diva,” my copy of Vogue, and set my iPod to the appropriate music: No Doubt, Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple. Flipping through the glossy pages and pouring over the beautifully designed fashion spreads is part of the experience, and it just wouldn’t be the same hunched over a laptop looking at an online version.

Like the rest of the publishing industry, magazines are scrambling to keep up with digital trends to put their publications online. This may have worked so far for major newspapers, but for magazines, this project is proving to be an awkward transition. It may take time for magazines--at least those more artistically oriented--to find their niche on the web.

News-based magazines are better able to keep up with the digital shift, such as Time. Like the New York Times, Time has the full content of the tangible version online, and charges a membership fee for archive access to make up for any loss in subscription sales. But because its focus is on news and contains primarily text, the transition is easier than it would be for, say, a fashion magazine.

That said, it seems fashion magazines are resistant to follow their news-oriented counterparts. As of yet, the industry’s front runners, Vogue and W, do not even have their own websites--they share one Style site. The site only shows one or two articles that actually appear in their hardcopy versions, and the site is plastered with ads to subscribe to the hardcopy version.

Even more comprehensive websites, like Allure, are just disappointing, scrambled versions of the hardcopy. Until web designers become clever enough to make a website compare to a real magazine, the online versions are just not appealing. Personally, I would still rather buy a glossy, finished product that I can take wherever I want--or to read at home while I paint my toenails.