Lately there have been some radical changes in the way I consume newspapers, magazines and books. One of the two magazines I am subscriber of, Tekniikan Maailma (generic technology magazine), is one of the latest subjects of change.

Tekniikan Maailma has an extensive searchable web archive of its articles for subscribers. That has been the main reason I've been a loyal subscriber instead of buying single issues from newsstands. Some time ago I became aware of two things that changed the way I'm reading TM. 

When a new issue of TM is published, the majority of its articles are uploaded in PDF format to the web archive. Until recently, I used the archive only once in a while to make searches. Reading PDF articles from computer screen has always been a little bit uncomfortable so I still preferred reading the physical magazine in my easy chair.

After my good experiences with reading books and magazine apps on iPad, I decided to try out reading TM on it. Transferring the articles over to the pad proved to be quite easy using Dropbox. I downloaded the articles from the TM archive one by one and saved them to a Dropbox folder on my Mac. That made the files available on iPad and my other devices. On the iPad, I opened Goodreader application, which is able to take PDF files straight from Dropbox and show them properly scaled. 

The article pages looked great on the iPad screen and I was pleasantly surprised with the reading experience. Magazine pages fit the iPad screen nicely and there was no need for zooming. Flipping through pages was fast and easy.

So the time came when I was on a sofa with the iPad and the newest copy of TM paper edition waiting in another room. The iPad won and I knew that the era of paper magazine was about to end.  

Nowadays, when a new issue of TM becomes available, the publisher sends a marketing email to all subscribers. The email itself is of no interest to me, but before ending up in a trashcan, it serves as a reminder to go to the archive and save all the interesting articles for reading on the iPad. After that it is easy to bring up the magazine on iPad when I have some extra time for reading.

I haven't opened the paper magazine for a few months; instead I usually give the copies to my non-subscriber friends who still enjoy touching dead trees. I don't know whether this counts as a piracy :)

The reading experience is not yet perfect. Saving the articles one by one is rather tedious and I would like to have a PDF of whole magazine for easier downloading. The PDF file font size is just readable on iPad screen - any smaller and I'd need to zoom in and out while reading (which would kill the reading experience).

Perhaps in the future we will see a digital version of Tekniikan Maailma, in a same way that Wired and many other (mainly U.S.) magazines have. I'm pretty sure just about every magazine and newspaper publisher in Finland is preparing for autumn release of iPad.

Wired's iPad app is another pleasant reading experience - I have willingly read through the both available digital issues. It resembles the paper version of the magazine but is enhanced with improved navigation, videos and interactive elements.

What I find positive with the iPad Wired is that they haven't got carried away with the design and features. The main thing of the app still is the text content & images and the interactive elements are small add-ons that bounce up here and there but do not steal the show. It's possible to read through whole magazine never touching any interactivity or gimmick. And it's still easy to get immersed reading quality articles - just like in the old days with the paper version. 

The electronic versions of magazines are still developing. Currently you can find many different concepts and ideas floating around - some replicate paper magazine experience, others take the whole reading experience in a new direction. Little by little, evolution happens: good ideas survive and bad ideas die away.

The whole concept of paper magazines suffered a big blow when reading on the Internet became easier. One of the great milestones, at least for me, was the development of blogs and blog aggregators. Having a collection of great articles available as soon as they were written made magazines more or less obsolete, as they by nature had content written a month or two ago.

Why would someone pay for outdated content? 

That is still a very valid question and the main reason I subscribe only two magazines (another being Disney's Aku Ankka comic magazine) and rarely buy copies from the newsstand. There are two things that make the magazines still interesting to me: good reading experience and the high-quality content.

The experience of reading from the paper against reading from the computer screen has been superior for the long time. Small portable reading devices have changed that somewhat. Devices like iPad, Kindle and iPhone are so small that they can be kept nearby without clutter. They start immediately and have an user interface that is more suitable for reading than for working. And they are easy to put down (try switching your computer off - it's not that easy as there is always one more thing you need to finish).

Hardware is only half of the experience though. Evolution of reading applications has started to speed up - on part because of mobile applications that have started to evolve along web browser interfaces. 

The digital versions of magazines is not the only thing that is evolving. RSS aggregators are also evolving from the email inbox metaphor. My current favourite aggregator on iPad is Reeder, which has simple but very polished interface, designed to be as out of the way as possible but still usable.

One of the most interesting new aggregators is Flipboard, released only a couple of days ago. What makes it special is a combination of highly social way of collecting the articles and an ambitious interface. Flipbard connects to your Facebook and Twitter accounts and collects links shared by friends. From these links it downloads the images and text excerpts and combines them into smooth magazine-like interface. 

 (Video: Flipboard presentation video from Youtube)

It's not difficult to be awed by Flipboard as it obviously is a peek into the next generation of Internet content. It is personalized, fresh and easy to read. However, after the awesomeness of the interface fades a little, Flipboard also shows it's weaknesses: the content tends to be rather repeating, with current hot topics dominating the interface and often even with same news coming up over again. Also, the nature of the app as an aggregator means that it can only fetch excerpts and headline images from websites - if you want to read deeper in the articles, you need to go to the source (the websites themselves). Flipboard tries to make it as easy as possible with page preloading and general speed of user interface, but actual reading (instead of just browsing) still requires constant clicking and backing up.

This is what still makes (good) magazines differ from the aggregated Internet content: you get a selection of content that is meant to be read leisurely and which has a selection of topics that bring something carefully chosen, new and even unexpected content for reading. 

One of the downsides of the transfer to the digital is the digital content itself: once consumed, it is deleted and disappears forever. Or if saved, it most probably ends up in an obsolete mass media device in a format that becomes gradually unreadable. 

When I was kid, I spent many great summer days in our grandparents' house attic reading old Tekniikan Maailma magazines from 60's and 70's. I'm pretty sure that my TM PDF's don't survive 10-20 years into the future. Maybe I shouldn't give away the paper copies after all.