The Future of Newspapers and Magazines Online

I found this article, Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, while browsing Snowboarding Forum, a forum I check every once in a while. I checked it out because it was about a group of highly skilled, knowledgeable skiers and a snowboarder who got caught in an avalanche, the events that led up to that moment, and the ensuing search and rescue effort. It is a great read alone but what really sets it apart is the multimedia it incorporates. It has animations showing a backpack airbag deploying, the different layers of snow stacking on top of each other and their characteristics, showing the routes the riders took as you read and scroll through them, and animations of the mountain among others. It was impressive to see this, it took the story to a whole new level.

This is what newspapers and magazines need to work towards in this era of online news and mobile devices. Not every article needs to be this way but more need to incorporate aspects of it. Today you may have clips, photos, or diagrams in the article but not to the extent to which this article utilizes them and they draw you into the article the same way. Most just have a gallery or something slapped on the side and maybe a picture or two in the article. I really look forward to see what direction this goes in the future. Since this is from The New York Times I look forward to what articles they do in a similar fashion in the future.

Related articles

• Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek (nytimes.com)