What emerging technologies should magazine publishers be watching in 2005?
First and foremost, I still think great magazines are about the magazine. Technology that serves the magazine and its readers are what I’d be watching, not technology that can “replace” the magazine. That said, if I werent a blogger myself and a typical magazine editor or publisher, I’d be trying to get over whatever prejudices I have against “bloggers” and quit viewing them as amateur competitors, and start exploring the underlying technologies that enable blogging. Im excited about the current era of technology because it’s not so much about being expensive and new but frankly about learning how to join in something where the technology is owned and controlled by your readers. The possibilities for me as a magazine publisher, or as a university or association or corporate brand, to be given the current opportunity to have a relationship with a community of people that transcends the printed page or the campus or the retail location, is a profound opportunity that technology enables.
