Magazines Can Go Digital, Too

For years, there's been a fair amount of discussion about the prospect of digital newspapers, but much less about digital magazines. The reason is simple. Magazines usually are far more graphic, glossy and driven by their visual elements (including four-color advertisements) than are newspapers.

Until recently, most screens have not been able to display photos and other art with a high enough resolution to replicate the user experience available by paging through a magazine. And most electronic "readers" have not been able to achieve the necessary quality to drive magazine readers online.

But all of that, like everything in the media industry, is changing, and some early adopters are moving to take advantage of the new opportunities for magazines online. One of the most impressive of these is Metropolis, a design magazine that relies on its stunning visuals to establish an aesthetic appeal that is palpable. This is one of the most difficult types of magazines to migrate online, yet it looks as if they've done it.

The technology they are employing, Texterity, says its "Published Web Format" makes "layout-intensive content, such as magazines and catalogs, available to anyone on the web using only a browser." Under the hood, this platform uses html with underlying SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and XML data structures to achieve what it calls the "highest quality visual representation combined with structural understanding of the document for both web and offline use."

Now, in case this is all too much geek-speak for you, go take your own look at some of Texterity's samples. After all, the proof is still in the pudding.

Thank you to BNET senior editor Karen Steen for this story idea.