iPad magazine success? Make it as little like a magazine as possible

Apparently the way for magazines to be successful in a world ruled by the iPad is to be as little like a magazine as possible, at least according to Eric Schonfeld at TechCrunch.

If I were creating an iPad mag it wouldn’t look like a magazine at all. It would look more like a media app, and there wouldn’t be any subscription or even distinct issues. New content would appear every time you opened it up, just like when you visit TechCrunch or launch Flipboard or the Pulse News Reader. In order to make it addictive, it would have to be realtime. But it would also be more selective than simply reading everything that anyone links to in your Twitter or Facebook streams.

Interestingly, commenters to his item disagreed profoundly. One said

I want my digital magazines to be a surprise. They should be dynamic and be able to be dynamic by virtue of there being much more content hidden within the magazine that isn't immediately apparent. All these idea of what dynamically can happen should of course be tailored to the kind of magazine I'm reading. A computer hardware magazine can be a lot flashier than the NYT. The NYT needs more grace and less flash but it still has to delight and the only way I can see that happening is with a more dynamic approach to page layout and article structure.

Oh, and absolutely no twitter, facebook or any other bs icons cluttering up articles. This should be a pure experience.

I suppose that this may be proof of the adage that free advice is worth what you pay for it.