Slate magazine is offered daily on the Kindle and Kindle DX for $2.49 a month. Slate is a fully online magazine, and its revenues rely on advertising. I was surprised at the price of the Kindle version of this magazine considering that the web version is free. I’m assuming that the subscription fee is mostly in the Kindle formatting process. The issue comes out daily, so the price comes out to only 8 cents an issue. That is not a bad deal.
Slate was created as an online magazine in 1996 by Michael Kinsley under Microsoft, who later sold the magazine to the Washington Post in 2004. Slate covers the usual everyday news topics such as Technology, Politics, Life, Arts and Business. I love the lighthearted, informal style of writing that this magazine uses. This informal, first person style of writing was one of the pioneers of the writing style we associate with blogging today.
The writing style seen in Slate matches the nature of the Kindle. The Kindle is designed to make reading appear fun, lighthearted and portable.
Slate includes a blog section that includes the well known blog: “Kausfiles,” by Mickey Kaus, who is currently running for Senate in California. Other blogs include: “Brow Beat,” a culture blog, “The Wrong Stuff,” a blog about making mistakes, and others on various topics. In addition to blogs, Slate also creates podcasts on current issues and hosts a readers forum called “The Fray.”
Overall, the reviews for Slate are really good. The main complaints are that it comes out a little later in the day than the average newspaper at 9am, and the content includes articles from previous days. By 9am, most people are at work, so there goes the reading on the subway theory. Other than that, the reviewers said that it is really nice to have a summary of all of the major news papers such as the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and others all in one place. Another positive note about this magazine is that many of the articles are original and well researched, which says a lot about the quality of the content.