Jon Udell’s Innovators show this featured Hugh McGuire who is launching a new project, BookOven, designed to aid collaboration between authors and readers during a book’s creation.
His post got me thinking about how since being in the US I have spun up two subscriptions to magazines where prior to my move I had consumed all my content online. The two magazines are Wired and GQ and the thing that drew me to their subscription was the price - $10 for a year long subscription. This to me, was astonishingly cheap and given that I’ve been an avid reader online I felt it was my duty to give back in this small way.
Living and working in Seattle amongst so many technophiles and geeks is always fascinating no more so than on the public bus - the 545, that ferries us all from Seattle to Redmond. Once onboard one can’t help but study the habits of individuals. There are laptops and devices being used in most seats, grabbing the free wifi, whilst there are a few of us who are living the renaissance and reading – shock horror - books and magazines.
There’s something romantic and soothing being offline, amongst pages you can feel and turn, that don’t make your eyes tired. There’s no temptation to check your email with the gold Outlook logo staring you down – it’s nice.
I consider it the perfect start to my day and it’s all thanks to a $10 a year subscription to a medium that is supposedly doomed. It’s hard to believe that given the small amount there’s not a bigger draw to magazine subscriptions.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little thought bubble, reading it online on your screen, for free. Happy Sunday.
(Photo thanks to www.busdude.com and his final collection of bus photos from the Seattle area.)