Content seems to atomize well in apps (Flipboard, Zite etc) but whenever it gets put into a singular "magazine" format it fails. Why?

You address the bundling problem: Magazine editors, like TV networks and record producers, think we value their packaging. Sorry, we don't.

The bigger issue for magazines is that they - like papers - insist on seeing themselves as product. They believe their value is intrinsic to that product (thus, people should pay for it). I've long argued that if magazines saw themselves instead as communities of interest and information, they'd have been far better positioned for the net. If they had seen it as their mission to connect people, they'd have been in a better position strategically in terms of "audience" engagement and in terms of generating data that would make their advertising propositions more effective, targeted, and valuable.

Also: I used to buy magazines by the pound every week. I loved them. Hell, I started one (Entertainment Weekly). But my habit is long-since broken. I get more serendipity and better feed my interests -- and create new ones -- online. I simply don't buy magazines anymore. An app that tries to recreate the newsstand I no longer visit won't change that.

I agree that this faithful recreation of a newsstand is flawed. But there we value editors who can aggregate content (e.g. Kottke, Longform.org, @BrainPicker). If @kottke put together his posts into a bundled form would they instantly lose value?

To me, it feels like paving cart paths, or skeumorphism, or whatever you want to call it -- the bundle that is the magazine may be valuable, but how valuable? I love what curators like Kottke do, but I'm not sure I would pay to subscribe to it monthly. And the newsstand model just doesn't fit with the way people consume content now, I don't think -- or at least growing numbers of them.

Ok we're agreed that the whole skeuomorphic magazine is a total disaster. We also agree that a monthly subscription model also doesn't map to our current reality, but is there a place for aggregating a grouping of content together that is intended to be digested as a "whole"?

It's the same debate musicians have with the idea of an album vs. singles. If we can come up with a new form (not an analog magazine) that collects content into a purposeful grouping... could it work? Prismatic, algorithmically assembles a content digest that is really a "magazine". Just doesn't look like one.

got inspired and/or riled up and wrote this: t.co

Jon,
The same content can be aggregated/curated many times by man curators for many reasons and for many audiences. *That* is the power of the link.