Ask Slashdot: What Magazines Do You Still Read?

AmiMoJo writes "Over on Slashdot Japan, there is a discussion about what magazines people still read (Google translation of Japanese original). Japanese people still tend to read a lot of periodicals, while in the west readership seems to be in decline. Do you read magazines regularly, or at all? Are websites a good substitute, or do print publications still offer something worth spending your cash on?"

Comments

None

[gameboyhippo]

None... The Internet has replaced the function of magazines.

Re:None

[mtrachtenberg]

A subscription to The New Yorker is like giving yourself a little treat every week. A subscription to Mother Jones helps pay David Corn's salary. I'm sure there are others worth subscribing to. I've never found a rapid computer multimedia data access mechanism that matches sheets of paper.

Re:None

[gvaness]

I tend to not carry my phone around at home, and still like to read something in the bathroom. Maxim and Money atm. Tends to be whatever family subscribes me to as gifts though.

Re:None

[PopeRatzo]

Batteries? Oh, those. No, I rarely bother with them other than the internal ones you get with mp3 players, kindles, tablets etc.

You bother with them all the time, by having to remember to plug them in at night. You bother with them when you have to think about whether you're going to be able to finish the movie you're watching on the plane before the battery dies. You bother with them by having to keep your eye on the little battery symbol because once that goes down, your "mp3 players, kindles, tablets etc." are useless until you find somewhere to plug in.

When people are asked what is the most important feature they wish they had on their electronic devices, "longer battery life" is always #1. So yes, people are clearly bothered with them.

Re:None

[RabidReindeer]

Cracked.com is a perfect example of how to move from a print publication to an online model.

Actually, Cracked was a meh, me-too imitation of MAD as a print publication. They got MUCH better in their online incarnation.

Re:None

[metlin]

Indeed. I couldn't agree more. There are some magazines that I continue to read regularly.

The Economist, National Geographic, Harper's, Paris Review, NY Review of Books, Granta, and Foreign Affairs to name a few.

The content in some of these magazines are unique and not available online. More importantly, it keeps these publishers and writers in business, which to me is a great incentive.

I am happy to pay for these publications because they are well written, well edited, and have content that is not easily available elsewhere. They are not just sensationalism and raw data that's poorly written by a 20 year old (e.g. cnn.com) -- they are well written pieces with commentary, insights, and opinions that I value.

Re:None

[damnbunni]

By completely changing your content type?

The website Cracked is pretty much nothing like the long-running magazine Cracked.

Cracked was a fairly successful ripoff of MAD. The problem, and it's the same one MAD faces, is that you can't really parody pop culture any more because it's become self-parodying. MAD stays in business, but just barely. There doesn't seem to be room for more than one mag in that segment now, though.

Re:None

[PopeRatzo]

You bother carrying one on a plane? What's wrong with the dozens of movies, tv shows, and documentaries showing on the screen built into the back of the seat in front of you?

The cheap-ass airline I fly on mostly doesn't have such niceties as a magic picture box on the back of the seat in front of me.

Hell, I'm surprised they still have toilet paper in the bathroom. Last time I flew I swear I saw one of the stewardesses fueling the plane before takeoff. This is the airline that declared bankruptcy and took all the employees' pensions to pay bonuses to management (the same management who took the company into bankruptcy in the first place).

Although they're not really serious about cutting costs, because when I recommended that they jettison the crying baby in the seat behind me in order to save weight (and thus, jet fuel) they acted like they didn't hear me.

Re:None

[Anubis IV]

I am happy to pay for these publications because they are well written, well edited, and have content that is not easily available elsewhere.

Sure, except that they're all available online or in a digital format (e.g. eBook).

The Economist's
National Geographic
Harper's
Paris Review
The New York Review of Books
Granta
Foreign Affairs

Granta and The Paris Review appear to only have digital versions available, but the rest provide logins and a means to access the full content of each article online, from what I can gather. And, honestly, if you're interested in supporting these magazines, shouldn't you be reading them on a screen anyway, since the printing and distribution account for some of their largest costs?

I do believe something is lost in the experience when we switch to screens from paper, but I also believe that it is largely outweighed by the convenience of easier access, the availability of more content at any given moment, and the lower costs for content creators. And for someone like you, who seems to believe that content is king, I'm surprised you wouldn't agree.

Re:None

[oldhack]

This is the airline that declared bankruptcy and took all the employees' pensions to pay bonuses to management...

Well, that narrows it down.

Push vs. Pull

[dtmos]

Print publications are literally put into my hand, giving me more incentive to read them upon receipt. Web sites require an active effort on my part to go read them, which is often not done due to my habit of procrastination ("I'll take time to check that tomorrow"). Even email links to my monthly periodicals go unused, for similar reasons.

To me, it's the difference between polling- and interrupt-driven systems. The processor has to be constantly (or at least repetitively) awake to poll, while the processor can be asleep and awoken by an interrupt. The interrupt-based system is usually the lower-energy way to go.

Re:Push vs. Pull

[oGMo]

Yes if only there were some sort of Rich Site Summary that could be published by websites that would allow a piece of software ... let's call it an aggregator to be fancy, or maybe just a reader... to pull content for you, much like a mail delivery person. If you found a site you liked, you could just click on a link to subscribe, and your friends could share articles and feeds with you. Google should get on this!

Active web user, still read periodicals

[shbazjinkens]

There's really no substitute on the web (for free) that replaces quality scientific periodicals. If I want to know about some uncommon subject, often the only way to get that information is by paying a credible source to deliver it regularly. The news-media and blogosphere aren't particularly interested in detailing the latest way to detect carbon nanotubes of a particular chirality, or the latest low-energy method of measuring gas flow. That's why I'm still an IEEE member, among other organizations.

New Yorker

[HighBit]

The New Yorker's commentary is often insightful, and I read it regularly. I also occasionally read The Atlantic.

In general, magazines (either print or online) are still where one goes to get well-researched, long-form articles.

None

[azav]

What I would relish though is a magazine reader like a 17" touch screen iPad, but one with the smoothness of display of the iPad and the ease on the eyes of the liquidInk of the Kindle.

I WANT this.

I want it for reading PDFs of programming manuals, for reading beautiful magazines, for browsing beautiful coffee table books in digital format.

Re:They still have magazines?

[roc97007]

I bought a newspaper last Sunday. The bird cages needed to be cleaned.

Just for old time's sake, I pulled out the want-ads, intending to look in a couple categories... I couldn't believe that those four skimpy pages were the entire Sunday want-ads. It used to be an entire separate section of the newspaper. One of the categories I was looking for didn't even exist.

I'm a little surprised that newspapers manage to stay in business.

c't

[Anonymous Coward]

C't is the top computer magazine in Germany. Their online newsticker is among the most visited German web sites and they make the tool which is used for testing the integrity of USB thumbdrives all over the world: h2testw. It is available in print and online with the same content.

The Economist

[imlepid]

I read The Economist (every week) and I am constantly amazed by its quality and informativeness. Although, I must mention, I technically don't read most of it since I consume the Audio Edition during my commute to work. The articles I don't get to during the week (because my commute is slightly shorter than the average audio edition length) I typically try to catch up on with the dead-tree edition that is delivered. If the USPS ever ends Saturday delivery that's one thing I'll miss: getting my delivery of the economist before Monday.

The subscription price is a little steep (about US$120), I feel like I could not go without it.

Re:They still have magazines?

[roc97007]

I bought a newspaper last Sunday. The bird cages needed to be cleaned.

Just for old time's sake[...]

Just for old times' sake, I took a shit on the front page and wiped my ass with the sports section

What a coincidence. So did the birds.

Several

[Sir Holo]

Harper's
The Atlantic
Lapham's Quarterly
Foreign Affairs (used to)
A few trade magazines

I read them in the hot tub, on travel, in bed.

No worries if they get wet, or lost, or if you fall asleep while reading them.

Most also come with full access to their web site, which often includes access to their entire back-catalog!

Re:Probably too many.

[SteveFoerster]

Playboy. Had a subscription since '89. Don't judge me.

In other words, many of the girls in there now were born after your subscription began?