Telemags should be the name of magazines on line…
July 4, 2007The beauty of technology is in the way it helps us create new media and new ways of delivering content. From the days content was delivered via the newspapers to the current days of the world wide web. Each medium served and continue to serve the needs, wants and desires of its audience. When television was invented it was called radio on the screen. When color was added to newspapers they were not called newspapers with color. Same is true with the rest of the advancements in print technology and other major advances in the tech world. The reason for this lengthy introduction is to pose the question regarding the so called “magazines on line.” Are they really magazines? Do they meet the real definition of a magazine? Or are they a new medium? The more I watch and read (note the word watch) these magazines on line (Watch Monkey or People test issue of its on line and judge for yourself) the more I feel that I am watching a television program with captions. It is a hybrid between the two media: magazines and television. So why don’t we call a spade a spade. It is a Telemag short and simple. We did that with the magazines that look like books, we called them Bookazines or Mooks. Calling the magazines on line what they really are will solve a lot of definition problems and will introduce a brand new addition to our world of media. So, as of today I will start referring to the so called “magazines on line” as Telemags. They are not magazines and they are not television. They are a new world of hybrid media that found yet another way of delivering relevant content to a relevant audience through a relevant medium. Telemag it is and I hope you will agree.
Mr. Magazine 
[…] Husni thinks we should start calling digital editions "telemags." Personally, we’re in favor of a new name – let’s face it, the term "digital […]
The substrate doesn’t matter, It could be parchment, paper, scrolls, paper or plastic. It’s the words and at act of reading that is important. Mankind has been reading the same way for 25,000 years. There have been technologic improvements for all that time. Each time a new improvement happened it further democratized the supply of information. At the end of the day a book is book and magazine is magazine if it has words, is paginated, and in the case of a magazine has an issue date.
There was a time when music could only be heard live. Then we started recording it. Did we change the title music to telemusic? When we started to record on CD’s or MP3’s did we change the name of music to MP3sounds? No music is music. And magazines are magazines no matter what the substrate.
Bob Sacks
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Samir’s Response to Bob’s comments: Music is like content, it is not the medium thus we did not change the name…nobody is advocating changing the name of content, just the medium. Every time a new medium is created a new name is given to it. Your own examples such as CD’s or IPods are nothing but a new vehicle to carry music… Telemags are a new medium to deliver content with sounds and pictures…They are not magazines, they are not television. They are both, thus the word Telemag.
Since ONLINE is not TELEVISION, I dont get the telemag part. I think they should be called digital magazines., They are not magazines and they are NOT television. And they are NOT both.
I think that the name of this phenomenon is actually irrelevant. A more interesting question is: WHY?
Why would online content have the lay-out of a physical magazine?
And if there are good reasons my next question is: Are there successful telemag/digital magazine on the market?