Do New Yorker Readers Also Love To Converse?

There is no question about the fact that the New Yorker's approach to putting its magazine content online is remarkable.  They chose not to take the route of many other print publications, focusing on making things interactive, engaging the viewer in community activities.  Instead, the New Yorker basically took its magazine and put it online, lock, stock and barrel...in clean, readable format.

It's a surprise to many people who venture on to the site for the first time.  Basically, they are looking at the magazine, and they come there to read, read, read.

That's what the New Yorker has been about since its inception.  As a teenager, I was thrilled to be able to grab the New Yorker before anyone else in my Wisconsin household got it, and pore through stories, learning a lot about the world of adults, and a lot about the City of New York in the process. 

I never stopped reading it.  No matter where I've lived, I've been a subscriber, so I'm one of the dies in the wool types that will probably never tire of seeing that clean colorful you-can-pick-it-up-in-your-hands copy of the New Yorker at my doorstep.

What the New Yorker website has proven is that people come there primarily to read.  To read great writing, to be exact.  An article in today's New York Times refers to the stats that underscore this finding and find it significant because it may have something that is significant for other print magazines to consider (though they had better have great writing between those covers).

So my question is, do these same people enjoy conversation?  Is there any correlation between people who get engaged by good--no, make that excellent--writing, and those who savor a terrific conversation in which the parties get seriously engaged, feeling the thrill of creating from the exchange of words something that is fresh, had not existed before?

 
My bet is yes.  I feel pretty confident that most New Yorker subscribers are people with something interesting to say and are curious about what others have to say as well.  Wonder how I can put that assumption to the test.