Stunning Glimpse Into The Future Of Magazines

Eli Milchman ()

Take a gander at the clip up there. It’s been forty-odd years since Bobb Goldsteinn coined the term “multimedia,” but I think — and maybe you’ll agree with me — this is the first time I’ve felt that I could easily apply the word and think “yeah, that’s exactly what it is.”

In the clip, Alexx Henry of Alexx Henry Photography guides us through a behind-the-scenes peek at the production of an issue of online-only Viv Mag, tailored for consumption on the iPad. Along the way, you’ll see references to some of the other forerunners of this transformation that we’ve written about in the past, like Wired and Bonnier.

Probably the coolest way I’ve heard anyone yet sum up the new paradigm, from Alexx Henry, late in the clip: “We aren’t making moving pictures — that’s what movies do. We’re creating pictures that move.”

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About the author

Eli Milchman

When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path — which explains why he's Cult of Mac's technology editor. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of Wired.com and BIKE Magazine, among others. Hang with him on Twitter.

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Posted in iPad, Media, Photography |

  • Victor

    This is neat stuff, but I don’t understand why it takes the iPad or TabletPC to develop this? It seems to me like publishers can do this already with HTML/HTML5/Flash/Quicktime…etc…?

  • Eli Milchman

    Victor, yeah, absolutely. But I think what’s changing radically is the way the content is delivered and consumed. Imagine whipping out an iPad while in line somewhere or on a bus, then reading and interacting with content. There isn’t really a current platform that’ll deliver that experience as well as the iPad (or similar devices) will.

  • http://www.retromaccast.com James

    Yikes! How much is a copy of that magazine going to cost? It’s way cool but all that fancy stuff can’t be cheap.

  • http://www.toxicspark.com Andrew Macdonald

    That is phenomenal. If this is the future of the print world on digital devices, it looks like reading is gonna get a lot more enjoyable.

    Im really excited for the future if this is just the start of it. Where are we going to be in 10 years from now? Even 5 years from now. Hard to imagine.

  • CaryMG

    The name of this article shoud be: “Stunning Glimpse Into The Future Of Magazines For 12 Millionth Fuckin’ Time”

    How many times are you guys gonna keep pushing this & the “Digital Sports Illustrated” video ?!?

    OK, we got it: Obsessive-Compulsive-Square Glasses-And-HighTop Converse Sneaker-Wearing “Alternative LifeStyle” practitioners will offer “magazines” that are interactive !!11!!1!

    *yeccccchh* ….

  • Eli Milchman

    Cary, this is new — an “obsessive-complusive-square-glasses-and-hightop-Converse-sneaker-wearing-alternative-lifestyle” magazine we haven’t covered before. But your indifference and/or repulsion is duly noted.

  • Sean Peters

    Can we please stop referring to reading/viewing/listening to various media as “consuming” them? They’re not, in fact, consumed in the process of using them… when you’re done, they’re still there. And I also sort of object to the continual process of transforming the public in to passive “consumers” of “content” that other people produce. We’re interacting with this stuff, we’re mashing it up, we’re sampling it, YouTubing it, etc, etc… no matter how much the big media companies would like us to just shut up and keep “consuming”. So how about if we stop cooperating with the process of being turned into money-generating zombies, by at least dropping the “consuming media” terminology?

  • Gary Simone Clark

    This is taking the act of reading and turning it into a game for the wrong reasons. Really, this is only meant for the passive-readers who stopped reading in the first place, after they got past picture-books or have forsaken reading altogether for junk-media. Not to mention, did you look at the “lifestyle” tag associated with VIV magazine, they will be nothing more than one big AD meant to keep future generations addicted to ADD medication.

    If this says anything about the future, I am very worried indeed.

  • Alex

    I’ll stick to my paper magazines since I don’t belong to the “obsessive-complusive-square-glasses-and-hightop-Converse-sneaker-wearing-alternative-lifestyle” crowd plus I suspect severe eyestrain will be an issue …

  • mark

    This kind of mags are the reason why I am in line for an iPad, one with 3G so that I can read the latest updated version of my favorite mags when I am on the go.

    I do not care if this is the gazillionth time they are showing this kind of promos i like looking at them and then dream on how my experience will be until I have that iPad in my hands and experience it for real. I can guarantee you that there will not be many free seats available around me.

  • Gary Simone Clark

    This is a new and exciting platform and all I see from the get-go is corporate pollution like this.

    I really hope there are independent media outlets out there whose main focus will not be to continue to distract the masses.

  • Gray

    I’m a bit worried that the adverts that will be required to pay for all this fancy development are also going to be moving, and flashing, and begging you to look at them, even more so that on the Web. At least here we can use AdBlocker to hide the material we don’t want to see, but that’s not going to be possible on third-party magazine apps, or Apple’s closed system.

    Don’t get me wrong – I’m definitely going to get one, but it’s going to need jailbreaking and quietening down before it looks like anything other than a noisy ad-filled TV channel.

    Who knows, maybe they’ll cover the cost of shooting the clips with subscriptions, but there’s no way they’ll want to turn down the advertisers’ bucks. They’ll be drooling for space on this baby…

  • IcyFog

    @CaryMG
    Did somebody force you to click on the link?

  • http://www.ledtke.com Jason Ledtke

    “pictures that move”? Lame. It’s such an incredibly short sighted and narrow view of multimedia. Obviously, these guys don’t get it.

    First, it’s wrong to thing of a digital magazine as a magazine. That’s simply the wrong term for it. You don’t confuse a newspaper for a magazine, do you? Of course not… they are dramatically different in their capabilities and the information they are optimized to present. Newspapers are (were?) designed to be inexpensive, current, quickly produced. Magazines are glossy, deeper, more expensive and less frequent but deeper.

    E-zines (or whatever they end up being called) will be able to INTERACT with the user. It’s childish to think that “pictures that move” is the extent of this interaction. I predict that creating a good ezine will be more in depth than creating a magazine, and will allow deep interactions and exchanges between the user and content, the user and the publisher, and the user with other users. It’s no longer a one way street. The sooner a publisher “gets” this, the sooner someone will truly revolutionize electronic print.

  • Maren

    VIVmag is giving away a dozen iPads to celebrate its availability on iPad. Check it out here:

    http://idek.net/1Cir

    Enter via Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.