Subject: Re: Slate, First impressions From: wally@miso.wwa.com (Fred Schecker) Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 15:34:47 -0500

If Slate is successful on the web, I'm going to rethink how new this new
medium actually is.

Slate takes little advantage of the web's unique strengths. Instead,
Kinsley gloats:

``As a general rule, we plan to avoid hyperlinks to outside sites in the
text of articles, and to group them at the end instead. It's a small
illustration of our general philosophy-better call it a hope-that, even on
the Web, some people will want to read articles in the traditional linear
fashion-i.e., from beginning to end-rather than darting constantly from
site to site. ''

This assumes, of course, that the only models of web storytelling are
``traditional linear fashion'' and hyperlinks inside text. But that's
another argument.

Slate would appear to be a real test of the commonly held notion that
``content is king'', and those who preach community are the hippies of the
1990s. Because content is all we have here.  Granted, it's generally much
better content than you now find on the web or in newspapers. It's better
written; it has a point of view; it's original, yadda, yadda.

But the publishers of Slate have made no attempt to create a community
around their content. I couldn't join in on the Microsoft debate and I
couldn't interact with any of the magazine's authors.

Slate cares about my opinion about as much as most newspapers do - You
wanna be heard? Send your comments to Letters to the Editor.  Snicker,
snicker.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. As Steve Yelvington noted in an earlier
post, Michael Kinsley  recently wrote:

"Community is a fine thing. But when I pay for a meal in a restaurant, I
want my dinner cooked by the chef, not some fellow at the next table."

So why bother publishing on the web? That's essentially the question asked
in today's New York Times, which noted that Slate will appear in print
edition. Soon, I will have the choice of paying $20 for the web edition or
$29 for the print edition. (although the print edition may not include all
of the stories in the web edition)

Well, duh. I'll pay $29 for the print edition.  it's easier to lug on the bus.

Maybe this is actually a great idea for starting a magazine. Use the web --
and it's lower production costs -- to launch the magazine, gauge people's
interest and determine production numbers for the real, print product. Sort
of a web loss leader.

But Slate says to me:
You new media boneheads have it all wrong.  People don't want control. They
don't want the choices storytelling on the web can provide. They don't want
communities. They don't want to interact. They're the same old customers
who have been feeding at the media trough for decades.  We'll tell them
what they want, what they need to know. If it ain't on the menu, they can't
have it. And sure,  we'll be glad to tell the chef how much they liked (or
disliked) the meal, but, no, they can't go back and tell the chef about
their grandmother's recipe for Possum stew.

Is there enough room on the web for Slate's approach and other more
web-friendly models? Sure. But it seems such a waste.

Is it smart to keep readers on site? Sure. But you don't have to limit the
power of the web to do it.

Yuch. Slate is a magazine I would read. But it's not a web site I will pay
for. Hell, I'm not sure I 'll spend a lot of time there while it's free.

Fred Schecker,
who admires Steve Yelvington for being a ``church-basement community dinner
kind of guy.''



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