Start your online magazine

Magazines are the best.

There’s a vocal bunch of people shouting PRINT IS DEAD most often in comment sections on the internet. Sometimes they write long winded articles about print’s inevitable demise, too. Then there’s the other bunch of people shouting back, although a little quieter, NO IT’S NOT.

And so it goes.

But we’re here because we love print. We love rich, informative articles, we love paper, we love the smell of it, its texture and its anti-ephemerality.

The very traits that make print “print” are lost online. Or so some would say. We shyly whisper NO THEY’RE NOT in defiance. The quality of print could be lovingly transported to digital, and vice versa. Take WIRED for example, a magazine about digital lifestyle. Once a print edition is published, served, and considered “consumed by the general public”, articles from the magazine are published in full on their website.

This takes time, and seconds in paper publishing are basically years in digital publishing.

That’s why most online magazines post fast and often. This approach regrettably makes news snippets, or sponsored content, that’s not really going to change anyone’s life. But it can provide quick inspiration and keep you up to date on a topic.

Yet there are online magazine that post few articles in between. What they lack in speed they make up with quality articles that make a lasting impression on your, or even change a small part of your mind.

The fast and furious content machines

Sites like Designboom and Design Milk post rapid updates in the world of design. It’s mostly pictures and moodboards, which is great when you want to be up to date with trends. But when you want to look into the “why” of trends, you’d be hard pressed to find opinion pieces or longer articles.

The slow and steady publishing fronts

Kill Screen is a great print magazine about gaming, that also has an online variant. A List Apart is a fantastic source to learn more about the “why” behind trends in web design and development. Just don’t expect daily updates.

The both

Rock Paper Shotgun is a wonderful gaming journalism website that exclusively reports on the many wild happenings in PC Gaming. They post often, but are also filled with think pieces. The Verge is a tech culture website, and they are filled with sponsored content. But every now and then they publish a think piece that’s thought provoking enough.

What’s holding you from starting your own online magazine?

You can start your online magazine in a few clicks using any of our blog WordPress themes. It’s a great way to start any project. Pick our Ippo theme for WordPress as a base design for your magazine. Ippo flawlessly handles short text blog posts, dozens of images, or both in a single post.

After you get an online magazine up and running, think about print and how it can add value in this fast-paced society that’s overwhelmed by a surplus of daily information.