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.
Sure it’s ugly, but I’m developing one now (an online magazine) and I don’t know what else to call it…
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?
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.
Wow, a SXSW shout-out! Maybe you guys really are coming to Texas. Ha!