Can a (Good) Magazine Be Produced in 48 Hours?

48 Hour Magazine, a project announced this past Tuesday, aims to announce a theme, gather submissions, edit copy, arrange photos, lay out a magazine and send it to the printer within 48 hours. If nothing else, it promises to be a high-profile experiment in using the latest web design, web development and custom publishing new media tools to collaborate in a fast-paced environment.

Alright.

The next question becomes, will it be any good?

The team certainly has star power on its side – according to the project’s website, the team includes Flickr veteran and co-founder of JPG magazine, Heather Champ, a contributing editor of Wired and the editor of Fray.com.

And to be fair, the biggest promise this cohort of web developers, web designers, content curators and online community organizers makes is that the whole process will be fun.

What’s your take? Is this a great experiment in pushing the boundaries of media convergence? Is it a gimmick? Admittedly, the organizers took inspiration from previous experiments, so is this yet another ’so what’?

One Response to “Can a (Good) Magazine Be Produced in 48 Hours?”

1. Nancy Henderson says:

   May 18, 2010 at 11:44 am

   With enough people working on the project, there’s no reason it can’t be good. Newspapers get put together in half the time. But my guess is that it will be a collection of first-person essays and stories cobbled together from old interviews, with very little timely reporting, and certainly none of the in-depth reporting and writing that go into creating a top-notch magazine.