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I've been mulling for some time over the question of how readership of magazines and the net differs, and came across this from Scott Karp on Publishing 2.0.
Essentially, its a grok on the whole "whyowhy don't we read books anymore" argument, but it has practical lessons for print readership as a whole. He argues that whereas magazines are read in a linear and predictable fashion, websites are read in a totally different way.
Randomly in fact, as users follow links and pages in a totally haphazard fashion. He goes on to postulate whether or not this means the whole way we THINK has changed - in a far more unstructured pattern than before - and it is this that is really insightful.
Google, he suggests, thinks as an algorithm does - in a networked fashion rather than just straight lines. That begs the question ; how do literature students and computer "literati" differ in their reading modes ? And more importantly, what does that portend for the way that we educate specific groups of people in the future ? Education is after all, a linear proposition - primary school, secondary school, university/college...
Thats a theme picked up by Jeff Jarvis, who talks about "distributed education " ; allowing students to use the internet to take any course they like at any academic institution. He goes further.. "Similarly, why should a professor pick just from the students accepted at his or her school? Online, the best can pick from the best, cutting out the middleman of university admissions. "
And even potentially, allowing students to teach and learn from each other. The true democritisation of education. Even allowing for the downsides of such a model - lack of research and the "Wikipedia" effect (where a minority of members so the majority of editing) this is fascinating stuff.
 Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the whole "print vs internet" debate is the emergence of new business models. Many of these are being formed out of neccessity rather than design, but whatever the reasons, the outcomes are bound to be fascinating.
One of these is book publishing; most publishers are forced to maintain high cover prices because of the mechanics of the book trade. A £15 book, for instance has to absorb costs of around £9 per copy if you take into account print, paper, the cost of production, and of course wastage/unsolds. And that is before author costs as well.
So the new business model proposed by Chris Anderson (the ex editor of Wired) will be a useful test of whether there is another way of cutting this particular cake.
Anderson is evidently considering offering two versions of his next book (eerily entitled "Free"). Readers will either be able to buy the book for the list price, or download a second version, free of course, but full of advertising.
Anyone care to wager that he earns more from the advertising model than from the hardback ?
The Observer carries a report on teenage magazine buying patterns, with some (un)surprising conclusions. The research, conducted by web research company Tickbox.net (and therefore probably a bit skewed towards online rather than offline consumption) found that UK youngsters say the internet has affected the number of magazines they buy.
When will this news become less surprising ? When publishers start to realise that what they are seeing isn't a temporary fad, but the effects of a covergence culture. Teenagers can multitask a 31 hour day out of just 24 hours, and their prevalence for games consoles, mobile phones and the internet is driving them away from print.
Hats off then to Dennis for sticking with Monkey Magazine when other publishers simply trot out flat online versions of their print magazines. Dennis are learning huge amounts about their users, capturing data and behavioural demographics which will give them a real head start in publishing's next big battle - against highly targeted social networks.
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