The March of Time
6/30/2010 5:08:34 PM by John McCallum
In one of the last acts of my thirties I read Time magazine for I think the first time today. Not all of it but enough to make me think I’ll look at it again.
I’ve obviously been aware of the magazine for a long time, particularly the whole ‘he/she/it made the cover of Time’ exclamation that seems to signify popularity or infamy, I’m never too sure which. But it’s really an American magazine that I see in airports and my sporting tastes are far too parochial to ever consider actually spending money on it; I mean does it even have a Scottish football section, thought not.
So why did I suddenly decide to broaden my horizons today. Well it might be that on a subliminal level the march of time is featuring quite heavily on my subconscious just now as a milestone birthday hovers ominously before me. That and serendipity. I was scrolling through my Blackberry and it was offered to me as an ‘app’. A free app. Well I’m not one to quash a national stereotype so the free bit had me sold pretty quickly. I can now push one button on my phone and get access to a pretty impressive array of articles and columns. So now Time magazine has a new reader, albeit a lazy cheap one, but that aside I must tick some boxes for their target demographic.
The irony is that Time magazine has got me just as The Times has lost me. They went behind a paywall earlier this month and they’ve nothing to offer me that I can’t access elsewhere. I get that at some point the online media needs to make money but I wonder which of these two great world renowned print titles is the most likely to succeed now. Time with its app drawing me in or The Times with its paywall keeping me out?
I guess time will tell.