Exit Strategy

Written by Jeffrey Veen. 1 comment

Jeffrey Veen

Jeffrey Veen is one of the founding partners of Adaptive Path and project lead for Measure Map, the well-received web analytics tool acquired by Google in 2006. After five years with Adaptive Path, Jeff moved on to Google, where he lead the redesign of their Analytics product and managed their web apps UX team. He left Google in May, 2008, to work on personal projects.

Jeffrey Veen waxes eloquent on why a printed magazine may work in this age of the digital.

You may be think­ing just what I was think­ing before writ­ing this: Why print a mag­a­zine about the Web? It’s 2008. Aren’t we a bit past ink-​​on-​​paper pub­lish­ing? Espe­cially in our indus­try! Well, yes and no. True, the web has grown to global and near-​​ubiquitous lengths. Instant dis­tri­b­u­tion, aggre­ga­tion of con­tent, and clever algo­rithms con­spire to help us sort through the glut of infor­ma­tion we face daily. Why, then, take the time and expense to cre­ate the mag­a­zine you now hold?

To answer that, we can look at how his­tory has accepted new tech­nol­ogy and replaced old. It tends to hap­pen abruptly and cre­ate rev­o­lu­tions — at least to the peo­ple embrac­ing the change. Whether it’s elec­tric­ity, horse­less car­riages, or our ever-​​increasing means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion; new tech makes exist­ing prod­ucts more focused and gives us the oppor­tu­nity to roman­ti­cize them. For exam­ple, when tele­vi­sion took over drama and com­edy, radio refo­cused on pro­gram­ming con­sumed on the move. Elec­tric lights changed can­dles from neces­sity to atmosphere.

So what has the dig­i­tal web done to print? Prag­mat­i­cally, it has con­cen­trated print on the places we can’t (or don’t) have con­nected devices — news­pa­pers on the sub­way and books on the night­stand. It also serves as means for those who aren’t yet con­nected, but only for the moment. But to wax roman­tic, I think printed mate­r­ial will con­tinue to exist as phys­i­cal mile­stones of pass­ing time. When I see the years of brightly-​​colored Wired Mag­a­zine on my shelf, I recall a con­nec­tion to the insan­ity of the Dot Com Boom. “Perl in a Nut­shell” is more eas­ily searched online, but the dogeared pages reflect a time of excit­ing possibilities.

Far more effec­tive than an expired RSS feed, this mag­a­zine may serve as a marker — embody­ing a time and a place, the way we thought, the things we were wrong about, and our hopes for the future.

But then again, I just may be nostalgic…

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Comments on this article

  1. Written by martinjy on the 13th of January

    Nos­tal­gia and soul are back, baby.

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