To go or not to go? Online, that is. That's the question many magazine editors are asking themselves these days. At a recent "A-list only" editorial conference sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors, attendees questioned the merits of placing their magazines on one of the bigger online services such as Compuserve, America Online or the Internet.
Mark Whitaker, an assistant managing editor at Newsweek, noted that the reason Newsweek has focused on CD-ROM applications rather than electronic services is his skepticism about the added value to its audience. Most participants agreed that reading a title on a computer screen defeats the very idea of a magazine, where the graphics, artwork and photography are crucial to drawing in readers.
One problem with online services, say doubting editors, is that you end up interacting with people who aren't necessarily readers. Garden Design editor in chief Dorothy Kalins complained that her attempt to "talk" with Time staffers about issues covered in the newsweekly degenerated into a dialogue with what some editors refer to as the "get-a-life crowd."
Rochelle Udell, Conde Nast's vice president, creative marketing/new media, wonders whether, when readers do access titles online, it's an effective venue: "We question participating in a large service because we don't want our readers distracted [by competing information]."
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