Match.com launches Happen Magazine, only it happens to not be a
magazine: Okay. Here’s an official ruling from the rexblog: If you launch something online, don’t call it a magazine.
Apparently there is some Freudian or Mcluhanian (Mclunhanesque?) need
that causes one to call something that is not a magazine, a magazine;
or to make one attempt to reinvent an old medium form on a new media
platform.
But “online magazine” sounds about as “happening” as “motorized buggy” or “televised radio program.” Wrong metaphor, people.
February 23rd, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Sure it’s ugly, but I’m developing one now (an online magazine) and I don’t know what else to call it…
February 23rd, 2005 at 2:55 pm
It’s not “ugly” … I mean, this is not about aesthetics. I just don’t understand the need for the “magazine” crutch to describe something created on a platform that allows video and audio and a vast array of interactivity that the word “magazine” serves as a stiffling metaphor. I love magazines…but this is another medium. Why limit oneself with such a metaphor?
February 23rd, 2005 at 4:31 pm
There’s a panel at SXSW to address problems like this. It talks about how we can address technology running into the bounds of our imaginations.
The so-called online magazine is just waiting for a new word. I have one: website.
February 24th, 2005 at 11:38 am
Wow, a SXSW shout-out! Maybe you guys really are coming to Texas. Ha!