Magazines anonymous (and endangered?)

Hello, my name is Heather and I’ve never purchased a magazine. Ever.

When I was younger, I read Chickadee and Owl, then browsed through many a Reader’s Digest at my grandma’s when there wasn’t anything good to watch on her two-channel TV.

But for some reason when I hit the age when I could afford to purchase my own magazines, I never jumped on the bandwagon.

Not even one CosmoGirl.

Although, way back in high school, we created our own magazines and I spent around $20 for publishing. So I’ve kinda paid my dues to the magazine world.

(And to think that three years ago I was so proud of this. Now, five months of CreComm has revealed the blaring spelling mistakes, poor type choices, and layout disasters. Sigh.)

I’d never given it a second thought until I was assigned a blog post on magazines and magazine publishing, and then I thought: “Huh, why don’t I read magazines?”

Besides the fact that I get most of my in depth news and discussion from CBC, I think the answer lies with that traditional-media-disrupting fiend: the Internet.

Magazines are known for providing information on a specific topic to specific niche markets, but the Internet has this mastered too.

There are websites, webzines, blogs, message boards, facebook groups, and various online communities which offer the information I need fast and free.

On the Internet, I have access to a whole world of people with the same interests as me, rather than just the select few who contribute to a magazine. And more importantly, the Internet can act as a forum for consumers around the globe.

While magazines can offer tips or how-to articles, the Internet can hook you up (instantly) with other consumers who may have had the same problem with a product as you do and figured out how to solve it.

There’s also the benefit of being in control of what you want to read.

Whenever I do find a magazine in my hands, it’s always when I’m trying to kill time and the only thing in the room is a stack of mags. In the latter case, I’m browsing aimlessly, hoping something will catch my eye, and – more often than not – doing more flipping through truckloads of ads than reading articles.

But other than when I’m at the doctor’s, dentist’s, or hairdressers, I have little time for browsing, which I suppose is representative of today’s instant culture in that when we want something, we want it now. The Internet provides.

If I want to know whether I should buy the latest operating system, Snow Leopard, for Mac, I won’t wait until Macworld decides to publish an article on it – I’ll go look it up on the Internet. (And even if Macworld does publish a review, I might just be able to read it on their website, for free. More on that later.)

But it’s not all selective reading. The glory of hyperlinking means that articles, blogs, and message board postings will have links to other sites of interest which you can browse if you so choose, often categorized in those handy “related topics” or “other people interested in _______ have read” sidebars.

As as result, it may be people like me, who prefer the endless boundaries, convenience, and gratis of the Internet, who are causing magazines to face the same problem as newspapers.

In the U.S., magazine subscriptions and newsstand purchases are plummeting: in mid-2009, mags like Vogue and Allure were down over 30%, and Maxim and GQ down 33.5% and 32%, respectively.

To keep up with the evolving playing field, many magazines – like newspapers – are going online, using social media tools to expand their readership and special online features to peak reader interest.

And it’s working for me. I wouldn’t buy magazines like Macworld, or SANDBOX (editor is CreComm 2nd year Jeffrey Vallis) but I have checked out their online version.

The bottom line that applies to newspapers, then, applies to magazines too: you’ve got to go where your current and potential readers are, and most of those readers are migrating to the Internet.