I just had a particularly disappointing read of the Summer '15 issue of Domino Magazine. To be fair, I didn't so much read as I did skim for images that interested me and then would read if the images interested me enough. Unfortunately I wasn't that into anything I saw and then googled "Domino Magazine Sucks" and found a forum of people talking about how weak the new iteration (not the pictured excellent issue with Jenna Lyons's old Brooklyn joint) of the magazine was. Maybe I'm not their main market which seems to be women that live in New York and like to paint my walls white and hang up expensive art.
This made me have a little think on my current magazine subscriptions, how I rarely read blogs anymore, the increased influence of instagram, and PINTEREST.
Blogs are weird now. There's advertising on them in a way that is really bothersome. I don't mind the sidebars with ads on them and I don't usually mind sponsored posts when they tell me up front that it's a sponsored post. Lately though... the people sponsoring are corporate garbage like Coffee Mate creamer. On a decorating blog. UGH. Don't pee on my shoe and tell me it's raining. I get if you collaborate with Target and West Elm and are selling me some cheap benches. Sometimes free stuff provided some solid content if it was styled well. But if I want to see a commercial for effing creamer and lightbulbs I would I dunno, WATCH TV. I just feel like these bloggers should use a little more restraint and not do anything for a buck and collaborate with people that match their site, right? It's a business I get it, you gotta support your family and such with advertisers but: discretion please. Anyway, I've been feeling a little uninspired by blogs lately and find myself reading very few of them nowadays whereas back in the day I would read a bunch daily.
The main reason for that is that I'm finding Instagram to be lazily convenient. I can scroll, scroll, scroll and look at pretty images and if one strikes my fancy, then I go read on the blog more about it. I like the ones that are for reals decorators who post photos of their projects and portfolio, it's just pretty images and a nice jolt of inspiration while I'm sitting on the toilet. And don't act like you don't do it! We all do it!
Of course, Pinterest has been convenient like that for a long time but again, it's gotten pretty advertise-y. So has Instagram actually, no place is safe. I've been mostly using it to make wishlists and ideas of things I like or want to buy. It is really important however that whatever image I pin has to be able to be linked back to some solid blog entries so blogs are still important in generating good content. Pinterest is great, I love it. You can see all the bloggers at once too, what they're into and what they're doing in a BLAM image.
Nothing compares to magazines though. That is still the best content. They have professionals working with more professionals, not amateurs no matter how good they get, professionals are just that. I'm down to Sunset Magazine (forever and ever), Better Homes & Gardens, and Martha Stewart. I still get physical copies of Sunset and BHG but I read most of everything on the iPad. It's great. Why wouldn't I pay money to people that know what they're doing so I can see well photographed and well-written articles? Yes, please.
Anyhow... that's my two cents for free. No refunds.
No comments:
Post a Comment