magazines

The latest issue of the Tufts University alumni magazine has a letter from the editor about how great magazines are. He lists the benefits of hard copy magazines:

• easy to flip through
• higher resolution than displays
• faster page download (once the magazine has arrived of course)
• good visibility of how much content there is total
• great magazine smell

All of these will be exceeded by computers pretty soon (except maybe the smell). And computer-based magazines also allow you to link to archived articles, extra content, video, email the authors, author's blogs, readers comments, and many other extras. So in fact, the computer magazine is really much better.

But I still love my paper magazines. I can walk down the sidewalk or sit by the pool with it. I can curl up on the couch with it. Maybe we will get flexible displays that can handle these features too, but I think we have a few years to wait. Until then, I am keeping my subscriptions.