On the birth of a digital magazine – HaHibur

This post is in a somewhat more personal vein. This week, we published the first issue of HaHibur (The Uplink), a new technology magazine in Hebrew. The birth of a digital magazine in Israel is often accompanied by difficulties, and it is these that I want to discuss in this post.

HaHibur, like all media, focuses on technology in its broad sense, and how it influences our daily lives. From government technology policy, through freedom of expression on the web, digital art, in-depth surveys of hardware, applied science, the cellular world, the culture of gaming, home cinema systems, vehicles, photography, and down to interesting gadgets for the kitchen or for outings – technology, wherever it exists.

Aside from its content offerings, HaHibur is the first technology magazine in Israel that is meant for, and from the outset was designed for, tablet computers. It allows true leisure time reading while leaning back in a comfortable chair, but which can go anywhere with the reader, without being dependent on an internet connection (other than for the initial download).

The last paragraph is particularly significant, especially with the new iPads. On the one hand, you have to accept certain limitations, and plan articles as though you don’t have an internet connection. You have to gather and insert high quality video clips, and high resolution images. For the most part, the experience will be amazing. In one article in HaHibur, dealing with the story of Bletchley Park, we included in the photo gallery pictures of the inner workings of the Lorenz machine – the Der findes forskellige former for regler til blackjack . big brother of the Enigma machine. But suddenly, as we looked at the pictures, they were so sharp and so detailed, it seemed as though we were looking into the very innards of the machine itself. That’s the kind of experience that we tried to create.

On the other hand, as a hybrid creation, drawing from both the old traditions of the print world and the new traditions of the web, you cannot stop yourself from including hyperlinks, or sending people outside – to the world wide web – for additional information. Like a tightrope walker, you have to walk a fine line between online and not, as you attempt to define a new reading experience, one that isn’t seen here every day.

And that, incidentally, is another problem. When we published HaHibur, our idea was that a tablet computer was the ideal device for it. But then quite a few people came along, most of them Android owners, and said, “But it doesn’t work on my [Samsung] Galaxy 3.” People make the innocent assumption that smartphones and tablets are the same revolution, the same experience – but this isn’t the case: smartphones, in fact, require an edition specially designed for them, given the differences between the types of screens. For them, and for all the PC owners who feel that they are being left out of the new era, we have prepared a PDF version. But we still hope to change the reading habits of Israelis.

To download the new magazine:

For iPad: http://bit.ly/19ejXIi

For Android (tablets only): http://bit.ly/1a7IprW

As PDF: http://bit.ly/GPvKT7