More Car Magazines Going Digital?
Winding Road’s (WR) reader interface just keeps getting slicker and slicker. While the articles and photography are no better or worse than a buff book’s (sorry Chris) and you can’t read WR whilst on the toilet, I’m totally into the e-magazine look and feel. I especially enjoy the jump-around navigation. [Quick digression: Why WR chose to integrate with nextautos.com is beyond me. It’s an entirely different gig, confuses the brand and the interface between the sites is a maze mess. Two words guys: Stendhal Syndrome.] I reckon it’s only a matter of time– say a couple of decades– before the “real” buff books follow suit. Meanwhile, it looks like one of TTAC’s favorite car mags, the UK’s Octane, may be headed for e-bookitude. I make the inference via a collaboration (i.e. a pimpatorial) between Octane and RM Auctions. RM’s interactive catalogue for their October 29th sale sets new standards for the e-paper genre. I especially like the animated page turning. But then, I’m a geek. Anyway, if anyone wants to bankroll a TTAC digital mag, let me know.
More by Robert Farago
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WR's e-magazine format annoys the holy hell out of me. It combines the worst aspects of paper magazines and electronic documents. I stopped even bothering with it; I delete the notifications when they arrive.
Winding Road has a terrible interface --when compared to a Zinio digital magazine. WR's ads (and they are all the same ads repeated ad infinitum) take forever to load. Also, the writing is generally blander than oatmeal, the "winner" being William Jeanes. His English teacher must have instilled in him: Thou Shalt Not Entertain With Thy Writing.
I'm typing this comment from my iphone and I'm in the bathroom too! The dead tree mags are dead to me.
I was a WR reader from issue #1. Loved their attitude. Like their likes (pro-Diesel, very much UNlike TTAC in that respect!) I liked WR when it was a PDF... I could read it how and where I wanted. Then they made it that slick web-thing and made it harder to read and less portable. I also liked reading (and listening to) David E. Davis' musings. Then he left. Then they didn't pay me for two photographs of mine they used - after negotiating and mutually agreeing to a fair price. Then I seemed to vanish from their "subscription"... meaning I no longer received an email when a new issue came out. (coincidence?) I haven't looked at WR in months. I honestly thought they no longer existed. --chuck