Print vs online magazines.

I was reading the print version of the WIRED today.

I've been a WIRED subscriber for more than 25  years now and the reasons have changed many times since. In my late teens, I eagerly waited for each edition to arrive by mail. And when I folded it in my hands, it was this amazing source of information and a gateway to new ideas, new concepts, new trends.

This is no longer the case. Nowadays, the printed WIRED will usually wait for weeks for me to open it. I'm not eager to open it, because I most probably, I've already read the articles that I'm more interested in on wired.com.

But I still enjoy reading the print version and I tried to pinpoint why.

It turns out that the print magazine is a highly curated experience, and WIRED is very good at this. It's the cover. It's the layout of the pages. It's the ads. It's the pieces I have not read in between the articles I may have already read online. It's the context, the order, the structure. It's the distraction-free nature of the print medium that makes the reader to give control and allows all the above.

It's the difference between a number of paintings and an art exhibition.

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