By Adrian Zupp
An arranged marriage … and you’re invited
In May, LasVegasWeekly.com was relaunched. As with most new Web sites, it wasn’t an easy birth, but it now offers site visitors a range of visual and interactive features that the old site didn’t. This type of electronic product, together with the Daily Fix e-newsletter, are somewhat new territory for the Greenspun Media Group (GMG), which produces the site and a wide array of highly respected and successful print publications.
One of the prize ponies in that stable is, of course, “Las Vegas Weekly” -- the sister publication of the site you are now on. Surely you know the Weekly: it’s home to some of Las Vegas’ finest writers, covering a range of subjects and issues with aplomb, insight and, when appropriate, sharp humor. It’s a publication of which GMG is rightfully proud. And, speaking as the Web Content Editor for LasVegasWeekly.com, it’s an honor to be linked to such a highly regarded pub.
The new LasVegasWeekly.com is just that: a new product. Different to its cyber predecessor and distinct -- though not dislocated from -- “Las Vegas Weekly.” I think of it as an arranged marriage. But one that is going to work to the benefit of both entities, and for you, the public at large.
Searching and searing essays are written these days -- and have been for some time -- about the future of print. Will the Internet kill newspapers and magazines? Is the Web destined to be the sole pocket-sized (or smaller!) info and entertainment source that everyone needs and wants? Downsizing at newspapers, fairytale success stories on the Net … there are bits and pieces of free-form information that have many people believing that ink on paper will go the way of the dodo bird’s forebears.
Personally, I don’t think so: at least not in the foreseeable future, even using high-powered binoculars. People do love the Internet, for sure and certain. With its billions of users that’s a slam dunk. But so many others still love the tactile and psychological experience of turning the pages of a truly well produced publication. These are two different experiences and they aren’t locked in a battle to the death. Rather, the evidence -- at least in the only dimension in which we can gather new empirical data, the present -- suggests that there is a symbiosis going on: a relationship in which print publications and Web sites can, and do, complement each other.
That is the mission we have set ourselves. Not to try and bend time and space and morph one medium into another. But rather to bring them together so that each will improve, and each will satisfy both their common and discrete audiences. I’ll spare you the thesis-length explanation of how and why this works, but many examples abound across the media landscape: from “The New York Times” and “Sports Illustrated” to the smallest of local newspapers.
A highly dedicated staff at LasVegasWeekly.com is committed to giving you a site that is, indeed, your content, your community. A place where you can get a fully locked and loaded Vegas experience: fun, sexy, informative, interactive. A place where you can make cyber friends (our My WeeklyPeeps section), see videos on everything from psycho midget wrestling to coverage of the upcoming CineVegas movie festival (June 6-16), or give your two cents right back to one of our Las Vegas Voices bloggers.
“Las Vegas Weekly” will continue to march on (and, as always, to the beat of its own drummer) under the diligent leadership of Editor in Chief Scott Dickensheets and Executive Editor Stacy Willis: two people of great dedication and integrity … not to mention talent. Scott and Stacy, and some members of their similarly devoted staff, will actually be blogging for the Web site. This print-Web site relationship will continue to evolve over time so that LasVegasWeekly.com visitors who live beyond Southern Nevada will be able to enjoy the articles and graphics of the publication that those who pick up the hard copy each Thursday already do.
Like countless Las Vegas marriages, this one happened quickly. Unlike many of those marriages, however, this one is built on strong respect and long-established principles … and it will be a lasting one.
As the future unfolds for the Web-print new world, I’d like to give a huge shout out to everyone who is making LasVegasWeekly.com into the premier Web site in America’s most exciting city. I’d also like to invite you, the site visitor, to really become part of this vibrant new community. And finally, I would like to pay tribute to everyone at “Las Vegas Weekly” who has given we on the .com side of things, a fantastic springboard from which to leap into the future.
This is one arranged marriage destined to last and prosper.
Adrian Zupp is the Web Content Editor of LasVegasWeekly.com. Email him at [email protected]