Sound Off: Another One Bites the Dust

First House & Garden shut down, then Blueprint was shelved. The dust seemed to settle for awhile, but then Home magazine folded, and in quick succession O At Home was shuttered. Now, barely a week after word that the mighty Oprah's shelter spin-off is no more comes news that one of my very favorite "nesting" magazines, Cottage Living, is ceasing publication. (There have been rumors -- quickly denied -- that Domino is in trouble, too.)

Blame the economy: Ad pages are way down at shelter publications. And despite the $5 or more you fork over for the latest issue at the checkout counter, advertising is what any magazine survives on.

But is there something more behind the demise of so many beloved home-design titles? Is the internet killing print? As much as I love a stack of shelter mags on a quiet afternoon, I do find myself reading them less and less. (I still buy them all, mind you -- but more often than not my magazines gather dust while I surf the web.) What used to be 100+ shiny pages of new products, fresh ideas, and drool-inducing "home porn" now often feels like old news, since I've already seen much of it on the blogs. Many of the homes featured in the big magazines are either clearly scouted from blogs (including this one) or have already made the blog rounds before the ink on the pages is dry.

I think blogs have also democratized design to a certain extent. These days, I'm far less interested in how Manhattan millionaires with top interior designers on speed dial live than I am in seeing the homes that cash-strapped artists, designers, and creative civilians from Seattle to Stockholm have made for themselves. And that kind of aspirational (but still attainable) inspiration is where design blogs excel.

That said, I do think we're losing something major with each home magazine that closes its doors. Consistently good writing for one, and original content for another. (And for me personally, work. I wouldn't trade writing this blog for the world, but it's not exactly paying the bills the way magazine editing and freelance writing used to.) So many bloggers simply paste up pages from the current issue of their favorite magazine, with little comment or insight that adds anything new. I'm not pointing fingers; I've done it myself.

What will we all blog about when there's nothing left to crib? Maybe, with fewer magazines as source material, we'll be more motivated to go out and create original content of our own, offering readers a more authentic reflection of our own lives and those of the artists, designers, shopowners, and creative nesters in our own communities.

That's pretty exciting. But still, I'll miss Cottage Living, just like I mourn O at Home, Home, Blueprint, and House & Garden. Curling up on a rainy day with a cup of coffee and the laptop just isn't the same.

What do you think? What's behind the recent rash of magazine closings? Are blogs a factor? What do blogs do better than printed publications, and what will you miss most about these departed shelter titles? Post a comment and let me know.