Many years ago, just prior to the birth of the World Wide Web in 1995, a friend and I attempted to create something unheard of at the time. The idea was based on that of a print magazine but would feature two things uncharacteristic of a magazine:

a.) Interaction
b.) Personalization

We weren’t sure how to pull it off, as print media does pose limitations. We didn’t even have a clear idea all that it would ent

ail.

What we did know was that we wanted to come out with a periodical print, probably once a month, featuring stories, local businesses, local people, local events and activities, all the normal stuff that would appear in a local journal, but we wanted a way to interact with people as close to real-time as possible and also keep the publication personalized, letting readers influence their own experience.

Not surprisingly, the idea never went anywhere. Primarily because we couldn’t figure out technologically how to achieve what we desired. We didn’t even get far enough with the idea for funding to become an obstacle. But we spent months with the idea in our think tank.

In recent years, I have come to realize that it blogs have been achieving some aspects of this  idea since the late 90s, so in a way when I think back to our efforts I recognize that while the idea at the time may not have been possible, it was this type of thinking that led to the innovation of blogs and social media.

But now something new is on the horizon that is almost PRECISELY what we ultimately wanted to achieve nearly 20 years ago. It’s called a social magazine and you can read about it on a recent post at HubSpot called The Next Big Thing for Marketers: Social Magazines.

A social magazine is based on the notion that tablet computing, such as the iPad, is here to stay and that consumers now need and have the ability to custom tailor their marketing experience.

Already there are applications such as Flipboard and Pulse for the iPad that give users the ability to pipe in content from various sources and organize it in a way that allows them to consumer the information to their taste.

As HubSpot points out, social magazines are important for marketers because they a.) reduce info-noise; b.) are rich with visuals; c.) result in social segmentation.

The noise reduction benefit is huge. People are overwhelmed today with information and the pursuit is on to filter and reduce this noise to its most useful and beneficial purpose for each individual.

The visual aspect is important because micro-blogging, which arguably has dominated conventional blogging, is limited when it comes to multimedia. Social magazines keep micro-blogging on the forefront and incorporate rich multimedia experiences.

The segmentation aspect, which in a way coincides with noise filtering, gives consumers the ability to custom tailor the information they consume. Essentially makes the consumer the architect of his own experience.

Ultimately what social magazines bring into the world is the possibility of making sense of the ever-chaotic Internet for each individual. Unlike radio and television programming, which packages choice select content determined by the producers and delivers it to viewing and listening audiences, social magazines let the consuming recipient be his or her own producer.

How will this impact your marketing efforts as a business?