Monkey Magazine: a new publishing vernacular?
"In the future, as depicted in the 2002 film Minority Report, our periodicals will create interactive, hybrid reading/viewing experiences-with built-in sound and motion-based commercials rather than static advertisements, incorporating news footage with pages that dissolve and re-form to reflect breaking stories. Despite minute gestures in that direction, such as the Amazon Kindle and G24, The Guardian’s PDF newspaper that’s updated throughout the day, that vision of media-if there’s really a market for it-is a long way off. ...
Nevertheless, something ... is now available weekly from Dennis Publishing, the company that gave the world The Week, Maxim and several other British 'lad magazines' as well as launched their American spin-offs. Monkey is proportioned like a glossy, has an interface that mimics the turning of pages and even has a magazine-like layout: margins, a basic two-column grid, images combined with text and print-like pacing. The difference is that Monkey’s text sparkles (literally, if not figuratively), dances and slides onto the page. Many of the photos will turn into movies or slideshows (some rather naughty) when clicked, and on some spreads users can shuffle page elements, substituting one image for another. The format also changes to serve its content. A small mini-magazine with short reviews is digitally 'stitched' into the 'middle' of each issue. Additionally, most advertisements come alive, thanks either to Flash, streaming video or some combination, showing previews of movies or commercials for products framed by the equivalent of a full-page ad.
To be sure, Monkey does nothing that isn’t done on other websites, and it has formal predecessors for its page interface-the arty This Is a Magazine, for one, and the webified versions of print glossies from Zinio for another. But unlike the wider web-which has evolved its own vocabulary and conventions for storytelling-and other web magazine predecessors-for which the turn-the-page interface seems a formal conceit-Monkey truly blends old and new media design conventions in a way that is both appalling and appealing."
(Jandos Rothstein, 29 January 2008)
Fig.1 Monkey Magazine, 2011. Dennis Publishing, Issue 183, pp.8,9.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Webcam viewers taunt teenager as he commits suicide
"A teenager committed suicide in front of a live webcam as 1,500 people watching online egged him on. Abraham Biggs, 19, told users on a bodybuilding forum he would be committing suicide that night and invited them to watch the live video. Forum moderators allegedly ignored the post - assuming it was a prank - while other users posted insults and even encouraged him. The teen used the 'lifecasting' website Justin.tv - designed to let users share the minutiae of their everyday lives - to stream footage from his bedroom.
Biggs, from Florida, was seen taking pills before lying on the bed with his back to the camera. Users claim they only realised it was serious a few hours later when they saw he wasn't breathing. Moderators then traced Biggs's location and informed authorities. The webcam was still streaming live footage of the teen's body as police entered the room yesterday. ...
His death echoes that of British man Kevin Whitrick, from Shropshire, who also killed himself in front of a webcam while at least 100 other people watched. ... The deaths have sparked a wave of concern following 17 internet-related suicides within the UK since 2001."
(Debra Killalea, 21st November 2008)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
