How I Read Magazines
I get a lot of magazines. Most of them are free trade mags like “ComputerWorld”:http://www.computerworld.com/ or “InformationWeek”:http://www.informationweek.com/ but I also subscribe to a good number of others such as “Saveur”:http://www.saveur.com/ and Bon Appétit. I find my magazines can be lumped into four buckets:
# The Vertical File - Magazines that I no longer have an interest in but still get for some reason like “e-Pro Magazine”:http://www.e-promag.com/ now go straight into the trash. Sorry guys, take me off your list.
# The Throne - The majority of the magazines I get are relegated to the bathroom, to be read at my leisure. From the pile on the top of the fridge to the bathroom to the recycling bag. Like clockwork.
# The Airplane - Most of the business magazines I actually do pay to subscribe to like “Fast Company”:http://www.fastcompany.com/homepage/index.html and “Business 2.0″:http://www.business2.com/ get saved for the next plane tri Of the free magazines I get perhaps only “CIO”:http://www.cio.com/ falls into this bucket. CIO is a great magazine for so many reasons. Read it.
# The Couch - These are the ones that I read the first chance I get. Saveur, Bon Appétit and “Gourmet”:http://eat.epicurious.com/gourmet/ are some examples. Likewise “Wired”:http://www.wired.com/ and Fortune.
I remember years ago when I used to read each of my magazines as I got them. Just can’t do that any more today. What’s weird is that even with all of the content available for free via the Internet I find myself subscribing to more magazines than I ever have previously. Wonder why that is.
My very opinionated thoughts:
* Wired is overrated, but the $1-per-issue rate and the occasional awesome article make up for it.
* Reason is underrated, assuming you have any interest in a Libertarian perspective.
* Fortune belongs in category 1. Forbes is generally much savvier, less sensational and more thoughtful.
* Why don’t you subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated?
* The only magazine I don’t subscribe to, but would like to, is the Economist. Too damn expensive.
* A great place to read magazines is on the treadmill or stationary bike; God, that gets boring otherwise.
* I, too, subscribe to a ridiculous number of mags (8 at last count). I buy books on Amazon quicker than I can get through my “to read” list. I had to cut down on the RSS feeds and email listservs I subscribe to, because it was taking too much of my time. What can I say, this is one of the paradoxes of our culture — the more information we get, the more we want. A 24/7 weather channel? Not enough. Sometimes I want to know, right now, what the hourly forecast is. Perhaps the phrase “information junkie” is more accurate than we realize.
P.S. When I “preview” this comment I get warned (twice, no less!) that the comment is not allowed due to “questionable content”.
You are right on Wired, and you are right that I also am getting it again after a few years off because of the price. I used to subscribe to Forbes but let it dro I do still buy occasionally. And you are right on with Cook’s Illustrated - it’s on my wish list this year. We get the yearly compilations from my Grandmoth-in-law but I’m looking for my own.
The comment preview must be something to do with MT-Blacklist, I’ll look into it - thanks.
Wired rocks! It is probably my favorite magazine. I usually try out a magazine I’m interested in and when I get sick of it I ignore the renewal notices. It is amazing the amount of magazine companies that will continue to send you a subscription after your’s ran out.
Cook’s Illustrated is pretty good. So is Wine Spectator, indicative that eating and drinking responsibly is not a goal of mine.
I like Forbes for business, but it’s a category 3 magazine for me. FastCompany and Optimize are interesting about once out of the year.
On the computing scene, I think cio.com and cioinsight.com get me to think more than any other IT magazine. Most are useful only to balance the short leg of an end table.
Don’t read these magazines!
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