anwsers

My question is a Digital magazine really any different than a web site? If so, why is it different and what implications does that have in where future designs will go?

It you go to the wired website, you will feel like this is a website. they has tab for magazines on their home page. the page takes you to, not just a page talking about that magazine, the article themselves. this scuws the line between magazine and web. Smashing Magazine and UX Magazine both use the title magazine and function much like a magazine, but are not. The biggest difference is the immersion into the medium. A website feeling like a website. A magazine has a different feel to the structure and immersion within it's pages. Although. it is not hard to see aspect of a magazine in website, mostly because the layout works and we tend to roll with what work before into the future i.e. mechanicalism vs digital.

Mechanicalism vs digital brings up ways to look at the future of design. The age that came before us is the mechanical age, and thus we use what is excepted standards user design. The iPad is the standard for tablet design. "It is only natural for us to try to draw the imagery and language of an earlier era that we are comfortable with into a new, less certain one. As the history of the industrial
revolution shows, the fruits of new technology can often only be expressed at first with the language of an earlier technology. For example, we called railroad engines iron horses and automobiles were labeled horseless carriages. (cooper)" The expectations of the technology change what the expectations of the user. The metal model changed with the iPad. We want and need to push further interactive design. It is true that the the model for a website has pieces that are used in magazines, the same is true in the development of the digital magazine. The true immersive nature of a magazine is what people want in the digital realm. Interactive elements within a digital application only set to amplify what the overall narrative is constructing within a magazine.


Are people reading more magazines on them? More books?

The data and research points towards a general increase in digital reading across all platforms. Amazon released data that shows that they are now selling more ebooks than hard cover books. magazine have just started and have real data that supports one way or the other, but sufficient to say digital print is on the rise.

Children interactive book change how people experience books. The children book Alice is an example of some of what to expect from interactive book. It, like magazine, does not take advantage of what is possible within their platform. Although, for a child the interaction may explore what they want. The books have begun to inform want interaction work of their demographic.


The other thing the current hype reminds me of was the early 90's Multimedia craze. Dictionaries were all going to be interactive, there were tons of reasons why Multimedia publishing was going to take off but it never did. People lost a ton of money on failed experiments in Multimedia as a platform. What can we learn from that failure?

The Fujitsu Stylistic, the Quadpad Slate Style Tablet PC, and the Motion M1200 where the first real attempt at creating a tablet technology. They where built from pen touch technology and developed by Microsoft, in 2001. They weren't really successful.

Bill gate made not one but three tablet to change PC driven technolgy forever, but the highest sophistication of technology at the time couldn't create a a good user experience in their tablets. The fall of Multimedia in the 90's is directly correlated to two elements UX and overall branding. The tablets also run into UX and overall branding problems as well. In full Microsoft style, they created a next gen compter with power but no attention to the consumer.

The moral is, everything matters in creation. Steve Jobs has made his living at positioning, branding, and creation of Apple and its products. He sets everything up to succeed. Ealier tablets did have the power but none of the element that really make technology great. In the late 90's publishers began to create e-book through PDFs. Technology is always changing and creating new ways to use it. the difference is the how people see that tech and what their entire experience will be.