Picture by Rutger Lastdrager

As a member of the Odd-crew (as part of the Minor Magazines of AMFI) we often discussed how the online social media (bloggers, facebook, online newspapers and magazines etc.) influenced the decrease of sales of published magazines. This ‘problem’ for the publishing world, or the trend that people are reading more and more online and from the Ipad/Iphone and other book devices was even part of the concept of Odd magazine, which we created in 10 weeks. It was like putting an online facebook together (it was about seven people, who were all somehow connected with each other through their extraordinary personalities) and make the extreme effort to Indesign it together and (god forbid) publish and distribute it across the globe.

In our team meetings we understood that as new generations come up, new needs and technologies were adapted and executed in a total different form. It was stupid of us to think that we were online for 10 years already (most of us are about 22 years old) and we would read and make magazines the traditional way (with paper and ink and stuff) for another decade. Stupid, because we’re making magazines in the computer for over more than 10 years now (think Photoshop/Indesign/Illustrator), why did it even take us so long to understand that if we’re interested in chatting and sharing our lives with strangers and friends we wouldn’t want to read and discuss about all other things online as well?