The desperate rush to flip the switch from print to the Web began this year with Time magazine launching the new Time.com to the sound of unimpressed readers and re-energized bloggers. Possibly the biggest blunder for the new launch (aside from a design so boring it makes us long for the original Time.com) is the inclusion of the “In Partnership with CNN” logo at the very top of the site. So … Time.com is just rehashed, warmed over CNN.com? The one bright spot for the relaunch was the re-emergence of former Wonkette writer turned Time.com blogger Ana Marie Cox. Cox had disappeared just after the 2006 elections and it was rumored that she might be moving on. This doesn’t appear to the case as Time.com has re-introduced Cox with a new blog called Swampland, a part of the site that has her blogging with Joe “I’m bored with you all” Klein, Karen Tumulty and Jay Carney. Too bad the blog is buried in the basement of the new website—good luck finding Cox.
After a great 2006, New York magazine begins the year by showing questionable judgment with their cover story (“Warhol’s Children,” January 15, 2007) profiling “artist” Dash Snow and his minions. OK, so they made sure to include Dash’s street-cred-destroying facts (i.e. the part about him being a privileged rich kid—not the homeless art waif he portrays, and how he’s a high-end fashion model), but in several instances the article seems to glorify Dash’s alleged coke sniffing and crack smoking as somehow sexy and, dare we say, artistic. The piece sums it all up with what might already be 2007’s most ridiculously fellatious sentence: “It’s as if Snow were an animal–prevalent in the seventies, now thought to be extinct–that was spotted high over the city.” Yes, and it’s as if New York magazine is that creepy 55-year-old guy who still hangs out at L.E.S.’s bOb, wearing ridiculously technicolor Bape sneakers, chatting up 19-year-old wanna-be models, shooting sleazy party Polaroids when least expected and “being down” on week nights in hopes of translating “those crazy City kids” to his Hamptons cabal on weekends in classic hipper-than-thou fashion. Y-to-the-uck.
On the other hand, you have to give credit to New York magazine for playing it straight—perhaps to their detriment.
This week they also published a feature called “The Media Diaries” in which three young New Yorkers tracked what media they consumed over the course of a week and reported back to the magazine. After seven days, the three subjects turned in a whopping 14 mentions of The New York Times and only one New York magazine mention. Next time they might do better polling their installed base of Carrie Bradshaw clones and six-figure “Grups” that represent the magazine’s true army of brand loyalists.
2007 media predictions: The NY Times will follow through with its promise to publish an alt-weekly; Radarmagazine.com will become more profitable than its print product and continue to steal Gawker’s audience; a new podcast king/queen will emerge—then Sirius/XM will buy them out; Malcolm Gladwell will complete his self-induced media implosion and the mighty YouTube will begin to flicker.
