Gawker had a post today about the Magazine Publishers Association’s campaign in which they are sending out current magazines to “advertising and marketing leaders” with wrapped covers dated 100 years in the future. While Gawker was pretty snarky about the whole promotion, the campaign made me think about “the physical” side of media.

I love magazines. I love getting them in the mail, I love buying them at the store. I love reading them, I passing them on to other people, I even love accidentally spilling my coffee on them. Same with books – downloading a book is just not the same as walking into Borders and coming out with 10 books that I hadn’t planned on purchasing.

In yesterday’s This Week in Tech podcast, the TWiT gang was discussing the audio quality of digital downloads and the quality of CDs (CDs won for the moment). They then went on to discuss whether or not digital distribution of video content (vs. DVDs) will be the way of the future. I’m not an audio addict in any way shape or form, but I know some, and they also love the act of buying music, and bringing it home. (As you probably have guessed, I’m a video addict – known to buy whole season of TV shows without ever having watched them, just because I’m interested.)

The only form of content I’m terribly interested in acquiring on an exclusive digital basis at the moment is video content – a point that is probably painfully obvious from this blog. I think that physical manifestations of content (magazines, books, DVDs, CDs, etc) can be powerful. What I’m looking forward to in the future isn’t to see magazines get totally replaced by online content, or books replaced by digital downloads, but seeing how the digital versions and the physical versions converge. This goes for CDs and DVDs as well.

In talking with a few people I know, they primarily mentioned the ability for magazines and books to integrate more fully with the web. As one friend put it, “Say I’m reading a magazine, and there’s an article about spaceships, and then they give a link where you can go and see a companion movie to the article. It could be so much than just posting the article online.” Like my friend, there’s a lot of thought out there on what this convergence will look like. I want to hear from you, about what you think we’ll be seeing. It could be soon (companion content for books and magazines) or in the future (digital paper is one of my favorites). Hit me up.