Traditional magazines have momentum on the iPad. Hearst and Conde Nast each report about half a million subscribers across their magazines, and both expect to surpass a million subscribers by the end of the year.

This momentum isn’t sustainable. While print magazine subscriptions continue to hold strong, magazine publishers cannot expect a comparable revenue stream from tablet subscriptions.

That’s because magazines’ initial success on the tablet parallels the same circumstances in the early days of the web. 15 years ago, traditional magazine sites were part of the back-bone of web content; the future seemed promising.

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An influx of new technology has made hardware startups far more attractive and less daunting to new entrepreneurs. Get ready for the next wave of startups that manipulate atoms instead of bits.

In light of Internet Week and Walkabout NYC, Undercurrent’s office has been buzzing about local startups. The roster of tech startups that are opening their doors on 5/18 are a familiar ilk: SaaS companies, apps, and e-commerce sites.

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I’ve been conducting some research on the future of new media properties like Gawker, Demand Media, Federated Media, Observers, AOL, and HuffPo. One thing that I’ve noticed is how self-critical the industry is. Many, it seems, are aware of how difficult things are right now, but there is general apathy about improving the situation.  Read more

I’ve noticed that more and more of my daily content is coming from brands. While brands still compete with web media publishers, bloggers, newspapers, TV, and millions of other content creators (like me) for attention, I’m thinking that the future for brand-created content is pretty rosy. Here’s why. Read more

Watching a video of Google’s self-driving car is a lot like science fiction: it can navigate the winding streets of San Francisco with ease. It recognizes pedestrians from distances outside the human periphery. Compared to a driver, it can stop in a fraction of the response time. Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, summed up the project’s vision at Techcrunch’s Disrupt conference in 2010: “Your car should drive itself. It just makes sense…it’s a bug that cars were invented before computers.” Self-driving, automated cars have arrived. With successful test runs, policy makers can both consider the realities of automation, and prepare for a transition from manual-only driving. Read more