Loc:Hooyi

WIRED Magazine and Adobe has teamed up to develop a digital-based form of the magazine that is much more than a simple website. It is suppose to combine the best from both of the print and web worlds. Using Adobe Air and tablet technology, this video shows a live demo of what could be the future of magazine.

More details and information of this product demo can be read in this Adobe’s blog post

Almost a year ago, in an interview with the New York Times, Chris Anderson, WIRED’s editor in chief, hinted on the print magazine’s need for a brand new direction in this digital age. “‘We need to do something that doesn’t exist online, and do it in a superior way. Otherwise we should just do it online,’” said Anderson, who is not part of the magazine’s website operation in any way.

Certainly, this kind of tablet-magazine does not exist, YET. While the tablet technology has been around for a while, rich media content has not been available to truly take full advantage of it. Not so anymore! So, will this really be the future of magazines, print or otherwise? How soon will this become reality? Consider what it will take for the already financially-strapped news media to begin an industry-wide development with this platform; and how fast consumer adoption of the technology would reach a critical mass?

No matter. The driver of this kind of rich media tablet experience (like iPad) will most likely not be the news media (ha! you wish!) but by personal entertainment like movies, music and games. It is certainly good to see a new way of imagining the future of magazines in this seemingly new platform. It is also great to see the news media (at least one of them) leading the development and use of a new platform rather than always trying to play catch-up with technology.

However, the most important and unanswered question - will people be more inclined to pay for a digital news product this way? Perhaps, this recent study, “Changing Models: A Global Perspective on Paying for Content Online,” by the Nielsen Company could shed some light on what consumers now consider worth springing a buck for.