Shawn Blanc wrote a fantastic article, touching on some major flaws in the transition from print to digital media. I would argue, however, that Shawn’s argument, is flawed one; how many people actually read a magazine?

… people who like to read a lot certainly don’t spend the majority of their reading time at a noisy amusement park.

Media-rich, interactive, and social – these “features” help flaunt a magazine’s content. Magazines attract readers based on the cover alone. The same can be said about web design, and an app’s UI. These graphics relate to the reader in a way that no website, or app — like Instapaper — could.

Every writer deserves to have their opinion, their argument, displayed as they see fit. Each article (in a magazine) has equivalence to it’s own website. Every website is different, has a personality — a set emotion the author is trying to convey. When designing Let’s Talk Apple, the goal was to keep the design as focused on the reading experience — the ‘readability’ of my words on the screen — as possible. The layout remains constant, and *can* remain constant, because everything here is my content, my point of view.

Magazines, though different, also have personalities of their own — however, publishers hire many writers, with many different perspectives. I would never expect John Gruber and Shawn Blanc to mimic each other’s design, writing style, or even appear on the same website; they are two very different writers, with very different opinions.

I would argue Instapaper’s success largely rides on the aging success of the print industry. We fill our queue with articles we find interesting, and authors we trust to write something newsworthy. Publishers hire writers based on their ‘likability’ — their ability to connect and touch base with their readers, as well as their ability to write. There is one main difference between Instapaper and a magazine – choice. With Instapaper, I choose who and what, appears in my “magazine”. Publishers, on the other hand, make these choices for me.