Magazines are Doomed

Print magazines are doomed. Soon all publications will move online. As with all media trends of late, this one starts with the geekiest information technology publications and rapidly cascades to more mainstream spaces. PC Magazine, an icon of IT journalism, started the trend in November. Now Electronic Gaming Monthly, an icon of gaming journalism, shuts down its print edition in favor of its 1UP network of sites.

Don’t think only the computer nerds are eschewing paper. Electronic Gaming Monthly catered to slightly less geeky console and handheld gamers as well. The cascade to the mainstream has begun. Soon even the dumbest supermarket gossip mag will go purely online.

PR guru Steve Rubel predicts the death of all tangible media by January 2014. The way things are going, dead tree magazines may not even have that long.

Google Trends 9-11 Prank

Google Trends tracks hot search terms entered into Google. Considering the thousands of searches Google handles every second, it must have taken a lot of queries to pull off this prank. The second hottest US search term on Google Trends today is a Wingdings font depiction of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center Twin Towers on 9-11.

(Via Jaypee Habaradas.)