A better way of reading magazines/news online?

Your average news/magazine website is fine when it comes to drilling down to specific articles, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to read an online magazine in a way that was closer to the way we read (or just flick through) the physical version?

Mag+ Concept Video
Matt Jones and Jack Schulze at BERG have produced a concept video of a future digital magazine reading experience for Bonnier R&D. Kicker Studio is working with Bonnier to expand this concept into a robust, interactive prototype over the next several months.

While you're waiting for the Mag+ to be designed, built and delivered, try out Google FastFlip, "a new reading experience that combines the best elements of print and online articles".

Web development "tools of the trade"

A useful round-up of Web development frameworks, covering server-side and client-side (JavaScript, CSS, animation):

Tools of the Trade: Web Development Frameworks that the Pros Use

It doesn't cover Javascript templating frameworks though, such as:

• pure
• Closure Templates
• EJS
• UIZE
• jTemplates
• mjst
• JavaScript Templates
• Ajax Templates
• prototype Templates

These frameworks provide a way to transform Javascript data/JSON into HTML, in the same way that XSLT can be used to transform XML into HTML.

It seems the jury is still out on whether the "fold" matters or not...

The Fold Doesn't Matter
User Experience and Design, Wed 16th Dec 2009

"Over the last 6 years we’ve watched over 800 user testing sessions between us and on only 3 occasions have we seen the page fold as a barrier to users getting to the content they want."


Browser Size: a tool to see how others view your website
Google Blog, Wed 16th Dec 2009

"On the download page for Google Earth, the install rate increased by 10% when we moved the "Download" button 100 pixels upward."


It may be best to play safe and use Google's new BrowserSize tool