The future of magazines online
Paul Bradshaw, a former journalist and lecturer from the UK, has a long-ish post on his blog (which is called Online Journalism Blog) about the future of online media and the relaunch of ZDNet’s UK website. One of the things the editor of ZDNet UK says he plans is to make the site more social and allow people to contribute:
At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss this as another organisation jumping on the MySpace bandwagon, but look a bit deeper and we may be seeing a window into the future of magazines.
To begin with, ZDNet plans to create a new post of community editor: “a hybrid marketing/editorial job - to moderate discussions, grow the community and create a dialogue with the readership.”
This role is not a new idea, but it’s an indication of where the ‘Editor’ role in magazines may be heading: not managing the publication, but managing the community.
In that kind of model, Bradshaw says, the readers become part of the editing and selection process, and their discussions help to determine where coverage goes.
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