Vibe on

Oh publishing, you wayward little beast of an industry. You are falling apart, and the only ones holding you up are the big business places which have such a backwards way of doing everything, and such a myopic way of looking at the world.
This is what I think, shh... don't tell anyone, but I think that small is going to be the new big.
Okay, I totally didn't come up with that myself, I got that from a guest speaker in my entrepreneurship class. It's just that, what he said just made a lot of sense, when big business get too big, then it's time for small business to topple them over one by one.
I was not a big Vibe reader, but business wise, it seemed to have a strong demographic, an attractive readership for advertisers, and an actual worldview. Most magazines (Time inc, I'm looking at you) don't have even that. What makes them survive? Backings of advertisers? MRI reports (which are completely useless)? Or just that weird feeling that Time should exist, well if they should, then shouldn't Vibe?




I would hate to live in a world where only magazines with a half a million readers and subscribers can survive. That doesn't make sense, I don't know half a million people who like the same thing, and if I did, I would run in the other direction. Run I tell you. Because there is something terrifying about that.
Most people who read Pomp hate at least a few articles in the issues, and that's exactly how it should be. You should be able to disagree at length with the media and what it's telling you, in fact you should be able to respond right away if you have a semblance of intelligence or sense. Continue the discussion, don't fall silent.
Perhaps this is something we should do for our web redesign... have a response page for everything you read. Get engaged again, or the din will drown you out.

-Kastoory