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Virtual Ink : A Reader's Web Guide : The Prints The Thing Itself.3From Print To Web: How Are They Doing? When it comes to moving from print to the web in lively and appropriate ways, newspapers are way out in front of their colleagues at the consumer magazines. The New York Times on the Web remains the best of the best (You already know our opinion of the site's superb book sections.), but other dailies and weeklies are catching up as fast as they can. The Times site, where the few minutes it takes to register a user name are eminently worthwhile, offers robust content in a handsome and easily navigated digital package. The centerpiece of the index page is a menu cast in the unmistakable mold of the newspaper's timeless print design. It includes both text links to clearly defined news and feature sections and a good use of Javascript (a web innovation subject to serious abuse elsewhere) to automatically scroll through a list of selected headlines. An ear at upper left on the same page leads to "The Week In Review," just as its counterpart at upper right will show you the way to "Books." The whole site, including archives, is searchable, and --are you ready for this? -- the editing on line is as good as it is on paper. Sure, the site will sell you a subscription to the full-blown print edition, but even if you're a subscriber you'll find the web edition a wonderful extension of one of the world's great newspapers. The NYT site is not just an ad for the newspaper; it stands alone quite nicely, as a complete and useful entity all its own.
Magazines Heed The Siren's Song, Too The Atlantic Monthly, at its Atlantic Unbound site ("Bound Since 1857 | Unbound Since 1993"), is a major exception to the rule that magazines lag behind newspapers in web presence (as is Mother Jones). Atlantic Unbound is much more than an electronic subscription pitch. For starters, an archive of back issues dating from November 1995 to the present is searchable by issue date, key words and more; a nice twist is the site's collection of related articles from back issues under such headings as Flashbacks, Politics and Classic Reviews. More important, the site purveys a thoughtful selection of "web only" pieces covering the arts and literature, politics, and culture in both its analog and digital forms. As one ought to expect of The Atlantic, the "web only" features are as liberally leavened with informed comment as are the magazine's print pages. There are teases to the current print edition, certainly, and an invitation to subscribe to it by post, too, but you also can subscribe for free to TransAtlantic, a weekly email newsletter. UPDATE Zoetrope: All-Story; the name will tip you that this is a project in some way connected with filmmaker, winemaker, innkeeper and general media magnet (nope, that's not a misspelling) Francis Ford Coppola, who is listed as its founder. The short story magazine originates in print and the online version pitches a subscription, but plenty of good writing makes the leap to the web edition. A standout design feature: the text is clean and readable, which keeps the focus where it belongs. And there's a bonus: All-Story Extra! each month features a pair of stories submitted online via an innovative workshop section that requires of writers who would like to see their stuff published at Zoetrope that they read and review five other submissions first, just to snag a place on the list of stories to be considered! Could this throwback to the spirit of cooperation that ruled the early web be another harbinger of retro-revolution? Stay tuned. Another print vehicle with an eminently worthwhile web presence is The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing. Selections from the current issue are offered, together with archives going back a couple of years and an invitation to subscribe to the full ink-on-paper version. Of particular interest at this site is a new series of web chapbooks by some of the accomplished poets and fiction writers who have appeared in TLR's pages. The Electronic Newsstand was a commercial pioneer on the web. It has changed considerably over the past couple of years -- decidedly for the better -- and now functions stylishly as the magazine retailing equivalent of online booksellers AMAZON.COM and Barnes & Noble. There are links to thousands of print magazines, but most of these still are little more than digital lap cards (you know: those "subscribe now" post cards that fall in your lap when you open the latest issue). Among the exceptions sprinkled through the site's many links is The New Republic. Although the site is hosted by the enews gang, it keeps its own counsel: "Each week we present a sampling of articles from the print edition of The New Republic. This site is updated every Thursday after noon -- mere moments after the magazine is published. In addition, we maintain a free archive of some favorite articles from past months and years. We welcome you to search or browse this archive, but we regret that our staff cannot honor special requests to search for a particular past article not already posted on the Website." An entirely reasonable approach, we think, and one that offers more service than hyperbole. >> More? Coming right up. . .Virtual Ink is Clearinghouse approved. The Argus Clearinghouse is a selective collection of topical online guides.  Suggest A Site or Report A Dead Link    A Not Entirely Disinterested Service of Bancroft & Associates: Digital Publishers. |