A scant three months later than I intended, today I launch my newest project: magazine.
It's an idea that I've been refining for almost a year, but I didn't really make the big push until the last few weeks to launch the site. What it's designed to be, first, is a place to publish the longer pieces that I write. I've tried recently to shoehorn them into the format of this weblog, but it didn't seem like an appropriate place for the ideas I was trying to describe.
Part of my resistance to launching a separate subsite for my longer articles is that I try to fight against the tendency to make weblogs into a ghetto for content that's not "good enough" to go elsewhere. The tendency to take big, important ideas and make them "graduate" to newspapers or books means that the weblog realm will always have an artificial ceiling, and that's a barrier I'd like to overcome.
But one of the best ways to do that is by presenting ideas that are born of weblogs. So the second major goal of my magazine here is to encourage those who publish content for a living to take pieces that are shaped and informed by the weblog community and include them in their publications, to let the sensibilities and concerns of this realm influence their audiences.
The majority of the pieces in the magazine right now are repurposed from this site, or from other sites for which I've written. But one new, lengthy piece is published today to mark the launch of the site. It's called Introducing the Microcontent Client, and it's an idea that I think is very important, and I hope that at least some of the ideas are valuable and not laughably idealistic or optimistic.
On a slightly less ambitious note, I also fixed up the Daily Links page. The sidebar on this weblog is available as a standalone page, complete with links to load it into your Internet Explorer or Mozilla sidebar. There is, of course, an RSS feed (and a 1.0 version), and the content seems particularly well suited to that medium, at least until someone builds me a real microcontent browser. Hint, hint.
Feedback on the magazine, the new article, and the Daily Links are more than welcome. Thanks for bearing with me as I iron out the bugs, and as I make some small changes and refinements in the next few days. First order of business? A print stylesheet for the magazine...
Where, roughly, is the RSS-feed on your links?
Sorry, I got a couple requests for the RSS feed for the daily links, but I forgot to post it. It’s linked above now.
Full justification is probably not as aesthetically pleasing on the web as it is in print. Otherwise, neat job.
Wow, nice job, Anil! And they say you have nothing to say …
… you barely stop writing, even for a freaking second.
Very nicely done Anil. Now I understand some of the questions.
I am thinking your attemptings at writing are convincing me that the Enlglish language is like your second language, or not, no?
I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your question.
Anil,
You are brilliant. Thank you for inventing “Magazine.” I agree with most of what you write in there.
I’m printing your content about “Stories and Tools.” My students will be reading it, if that’s okay. I’m interested in stories, as I am a writer.
If you need a writer for your “Magazine,” please let me know. Thank you. So much!
Thanks for the kind comments, and feel free to print any of the articles, sorry I haven’t gotten to the print stylesheet yet. You might want to show your students a similar concept that’s illustrated by the Elements of User Experience diagram that served as the basis for jjg’s book of the same name. It’s a more fleshed out description of some similar ideas. Please email me with any other questions of comments.
way, to go anil! i’m fascinated by all these attempts to fuse the ease of blog CMS tools with more flexible magazine formats. The Morning News and American Times also both come to mind.
I’m currently trying to encourage contributors to help me flesh out Radio Free Blogistan, and I’ve got many other half-baked publication-cum-blog projects in the works, so I’ll be watching your efforts with Magazine closely.