I've Read the Future of Media Guides

And it works. Oh does it work.

Anyone out there subscribing to WIRED magazine via iPad?

I heard talk of the "new publishing techniques" that were a part of Adobe's rush to get out Creative Suite 5.5. In all the transitions this summer, I haven't had a chance to play with them from the "creative" end. (Someday, I might actually get that installed, but that's another story for another day.)

I have seen it from the consumer end. Taking advantage of the $19 bucks a year drop on WIRED's subscription and lacking a big Barnes & Noble or Hastings to just walk into and grab a copy, I ponied up for the in-app payment.

Even if you don't want to go the full $19, download their app and get the recent issue -- the 19.06 one with Extreme Science for the cover story. Scroll in several pages a you will begin to get a feel for what REAL interactive media guides will bring.

Ads that include video inserts and games. Layouts that slide left and right as well as up and down (look for the sly visual cues that your article goes down, not just to the left).

Then, get to the article PROCESS: How Con Ed averts blackouts. Scroll down and see how a chart that would be laid out across several columns in print becomes an elegant interactive. Look right below that for the killer payoff: How pigs grunt in foreign languages.

Oh sure, you get those little throw away factoids at the bottom of every WIRED page. The one right before it was about the FDA's acceptable amount of insect parts per gram of foods.

So here's this line of phonetics of how 11 different countries express "Oink Oink".

Except you can "Touch each button to hear the grunt."

No $h!t -- "Eff Eff" says the Danish pig. "Boo Boo" says the Nipponese.

Looks like they left out the 12th one -- how long until you can push that button in a Razorback press guide and hear "Woo Pig Sooie"? (Actually, I'd have a guess on that, but that's ANOTHER story for another day).

In all seriousness, this is the evolution of the print presentation into a multimedia, multileveled whole. It can include the numbers, but discretely hide them in the lower slides and below a level in links. It can raise the content for recruiting up front with video and tours.

And, it's all portable within the app space, and I'm betting, publishable out of CS 5.5.

To heck with all that custom flash -- here is the way back, SID folks.