If you ever wanted to get your hands on every single issue The New Yorker, but were afraid of killing trees, fear no more!  You can now purchase The Complete New Yorker, over 4000 issues, on a portable harddrive for $300.  This includes every cover, ever cartoon and every advertisement since 1925.  Nothing is left out.  This is actually significantly cheaper than it would be in print and, I dare say, much more environmentally responsible.  Not to mention much more manageable. 

I am honestly not a huge fan of The New Yorker, but this move has broader implications for publishing and media in general.  What else might we see in similar formats.  They fit 4,000 issues of a magazine on an 80 gig harddrive, might we soon see every issue of whole newspapers?  And why stop at hard drives.  In another two years we could see a decade The New York Times on a flash drive. 

 

And why not bundle genres, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Scientific American on a something I can put in my pocket.  Now that's something I'd pay $300 for.

 

Via Digg