American Angler/Fly Tyer/Gray’s Online Full Beta

[deanf]

I guess I am going to be the odd man out here. Realizing that these are just betas, I have to say that trying to read the Fly Tyer was a very unpleasant experience. Constant fiddling with the page size, blurry text, clunky controls, etc. I hope that they will improve that with time. Though I am no luddite, reading any more than a few paragraphs, on any type of electronic book reader, iphone, Kindle, PDA, or computer screen, is not my cup of tea. None of them can match the perfect back lighting of the printed word on paper as far as eye ease is concerned. Not to mention true portability, and cost. I mean what would you rather lose, a $6 paperback, or your Kindle? Don’t get me wrong, I consume a lot of electronic media, but anything beyond 2000 words or so, print is the way to go IMO.

[charlie kreitler]

Pretty cool stuff. However, until they resolve what I shall refer to as “the bathroom problem”, digital media will supplement but not replace my well worn paper copies of the magazine. 🙂

[anonymous]

Zach- no worries here:)

I’ m confident as well that the rough edges will get smoothed out and

[Chad Simcox]

As much as I support efforts of going green, this is one format I do not enjoy very much. It’s great for a supplement and gets the articles in front of more eyes, but I hope it doesn’t replace the printed page. This is Fly has it right, with better navigation along side what I would consider the best FF publication out there. There are things I would obviously change to their nav as well (like once I’m in the 2nd half of the rag, how can I go back to the first half without going page by page?) But I still like the physicalness of magazines. I like being able to take it with me wherever I want and the ease of being able to go back to them to reference articles, photos, etc. I can take them in the car, a waiting room, a plane, the beach, or even for when sitting on the can.
I may be a bit biased as well. My dad and uncle work in the printing industry. Until a year ago, my dad was working in the same building that my great grandfather worked in on a printing press as well. It’s an industry that is hurting, and my family sees the affects of that.
But the flipside to it, is that maybe this is going to be an important part of the green revolution. There are a lot of environmental issues with the paper industry and I’m sure the same goes for the ink and printing industries. Not to mention the fuel usage and emissions to ship the paper, inks, as well as for distributing the finished product. Now, a lot of printing is being outsourced to overseas then shipped back to the US. With the green revolution there will be less green for a lot of people here (paper industry, ink industry, printing, shipping, distribution, retail)….
On a business side of things, I’m surprised that advertisers aren’t putting more faith and agencies putting more value into web advertising. I can see an ad, click on it and go to the advertisers site to find out more about the product, then click and buy the thing without leaving my chair, all in a matter of minutes! “Call to action” out, “click to action” in! You have the potential to reach a world wide audience with more direct action than any mailer, print, radio or TV advert. I have a friend who does online marketing for companies and has noticed that companies owned by or run by younger people see a lot of value in web and social networking advertising, where as companies with older suits in charge do not see the value and within a few years may be left wondering why their market isn’t growing.

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[jeff s]

It’s a neat idea but there were some horrible usability issues with this version.

[kurt hauck]

It was helpful that clicking the title of an article gave a text copy of the article. The views of the pages let me get an idea of the layout artistry but the text only was necessary to actually read.

[bill heffner]

I hope it is not the future.

[andrew grabham]

Some cool things to think about:

I often can’t remember where I saw that article about ‘so and so’.
With a bit of forward thinking, AA can give me an active link index
for the years subscription.

Reading ‘online’ for me give me the sh#ts, so the downloadable PDF
hits the spot nicely. I REALLY like the fly tying mag.

The ‘bathroom’ issue comes a distant second to the ‘bedroom’ issue.
I would rather have the digital edition than nothing.

As far as advertising goes – one click and I’m immediately browsing
their whole catalogue. You think they would have to be happy with
that.

Hope I’m not too old to change. 😛

Andrew

[Author]

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