(© 2008 MCT)
A flashy first for Esquire magazine
By Chris Gaylord | 07.22.08
“The 21st Century Begins Now,” proclaims the October issue of Esquire. To make its point, the magazine will come with a battery-powered digital cover that flashes the tag line.
This animated brush with science fiction uses admittedly simple technology, but packages it in a way that no publisher has yet pulled off. The cover comes embedded with an E Ink display, the same setup used by the Amazon Kindle book reader. But rather than settle for the Kindle’s boxy frame, Esquire commissioned itty-bitty batteries that will tuck into its paper-thin front page.
The men’s fashion magazine has tinkered with this idea since 2000, and editor David Granger told The New York Times it’s finally gotten it right.
First Esquire had to make a six-figure investment to hire an engineer in China to develop a battery small enough to be inserted in the magazine cover. The batteries and the display case are manufactured and put together in China. They are shipped to Texas and on to Mexico, where the device is inserted by hand into each magazine. The issues will then be shipped via trucks, which will be refrigerated to preserve the batteries, to the magazine’s distributor in Glazer, Ky.
Ford Motor has sponsored the expensive endeavor, paying for an ad on the issue’s E Ink inside cover.
But this flashy revision of a 150-year-old magazine industry is still only a first draft. The special batteries will drain after 90 days, and this initial 100,000-copy run will only hit magazine racks. Subscribers are out of luck.
Still, Mr. Granger says the issue, due out in September, is both a push for new subscribers and chance to inspire innovation in other magazines.
“I have been frustrated with the lack of forward movement in the magazine industry,” he says. “The possibilities of print have just begun. In two years, I hope this looks like cellphones did in 1982, or car phones.”
I’m excited to see the cover in action, but we’ll see if his prediction is right, or if after two years, E Ink becomes the new hologram cover – cool and flashy, then simply tacky.
[Via NYTimes]
[Editor’s Note: As a commenter pointed out, this special edition will hit newsstands in September, but is technically the October issue.]
<< A city locked out of its own data network | MainComments
2. Franky Anonymous | 07.23.08
This is so cool. What does this mean about the future of paper? Soon, the entire magazine could be e-ink.
3. Joe | 07.23.08
Can you imagine the headache that might come from an entire magazine rack filled with E Ink covers? Yikes.
4. Mike Bellman | 07.23.08
The whole problem with this type of marketing is is completely sells short the true nature e-ink. This medium is not just simple words which scroll. Anyone with a laptop or a palm pilot can do that. The idea with e-ink newspapers and books is that you should be able to CHANGE THEM. Read what you want while using ZERO power, turn the page ONCE and use zero power after the page changes.
Updates, edits, additional info and eventually THE NEXT EDITION should all be available on the low-power e-ink device. This double sided fancier calculator display Equire is publishing is reducing the value and the potential of e-ink
5. Forestwalkerjoe | 07.23.08
So is this the same as the Electronic paper one heard about a couple years ago? It was suggested then that school children would have ONE page to write their homework on.. one that used ” i guess ” a type of E ink and had its own renewable battery could be attached to a key board via a magnetic link cable.. and could even be folded. could hold many pages and turn pages via a ink button on the side. recharged either via solar or when attached to a PC of some sort. BUT i never heard of this again. When Eink and the link became a reality and Ebooks were released everywhere.. i was elated.. but STILL Waiting for this SUPER PAPER i read about. ok so the cover will last what.. 60 days? its gonna “blink”? i would love to see this advanced to the point of the above idea. ANY one even heard of what i speak of up there?
FWJ
6. MGF | 07.24.08
This is a silly application of e-ink technology. For a non-silly example,
get thee to Amazon and pick up a Kindle e-book reader. Lasts a couple of
weeks between recharges, thousands of ebooks out there for free download,
many more thousands for purchase at Amazon, with wireless download
built into the reader. You can also download daily newspapers, magazines,
blogs and so on for a modest monthly fee.
I’ve held off moving to e-ink/e-book technology for a long time, but I’m
convinced now after spending a month living with a Kindle.
7. AlpineWarrior | 07.24.08
So does the world really need 100,000 batteries and circuit boards that will end up in landfills each month? When the trend catches on, will the publishers provide recycling. What a complete waste of resources.
8. Keith Nealy | 07.24.08
Forget the Kindle. Get an iPhone. Free books and paid books download and read on the iPhone with either Stanza or eReader. Transfer your own documents (PDF, text, Word, RTF, etc.). You don’t have to carry around a big bulky Kindle. You’ve got it all in your cell phone, along with music, videos, a full web browser, email, contacts, calendars, GPS, and much more. [I don’t work for Apple. I just admire their products.]
9. Kevin | 07.29.08
After the 90 days the battery is supposed to last–my guess is that it will probably last about a month–it will just become a useless piece of plastic… unless Esquire offer replacement battery’s.
However, this is a step in the right direction.
10. Catrandom | 08.01.08
Or, if you’d prefer not to have Amazon know about everything you read, get a Sony e-Reader. No WiFi, but no privacy issues either.
But either way, printing news on paper and driving it around in trucks is clearly a dying model. Not dead yet, but not there for the long term, either.
11. Ben | 08.01.08
Agree w/ AlpineWarrior-isn’t the mainstreaminging of a corporate social responsibility, triple bottom line, etc…”green” approach to product development and life cycle analysis leading us away from this (unless it can be recycled).
Just because something CAN be done, doesn’t mean it should be done:
Muscle cars are “cool”, too, but, why develop a new generation of them ?
If there is a “green” aspect to this, then it’s curious the article didn’t mention it-seems like a big omission.
Why not design “cool” and “green” into things.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. Adam | 07.22.08
FYI- this will appear on the October anniversary issue, which will be on newsstands in September.