"I can’t say I agree with you here, however. After a eight or ten hours a day in front of the screen, the last thing I usually want to do is spend more time in front of one. ;-)"

Well then take out a print subscription then! ; - ) No seriously, as long as we have people who feel that way, we have a print magazine market. It's one of the few things we have as a selling point for a magazine that you can otherwise read freely online. Why would we want to undermine that by making it more attractive not to take out a print subscription?

"I agree that there’s a balance between “interactivty” and unecessary frills. However, as we both know, there’s limited space in a print publication, and that limit usually carries over to their “digital edition” equivalents (unecessarily)."

As an editor, I would argue that such editorial strictures actually make for better copy. Who wants to read a long and rambling article of 5,000 words just because you can have them on the web, when a shorter and more concise article might actually be more readable and effective? And if anything, people tend to prefer to read even shorter blobs of text on the web than they would in print.

"What about easily accessible background information, and interactive content that helps to provide context and deepen the readers understanding of a story?"

Sounds great, but who's going to do it? That's a lot of extra time, energy and resources which few indy publishers have. We certainly don't. I can't even get my editors to blog let alone fill-out stories with extra context and background information.

"I also think there are opportunities to provide a space for positive commentary that are often overlooked."

I doubt you would find much negative commentary when it is someone's personal weblog on their fight with cancer. I think you will find it different if you are taking a position on something like Israel/Palestine or climate change.

"Onward-and-upward (and here’s to more interactivity this year at NI!). :-)"

Speaking of which, you still owe me a blog entry on Cuba IIRC! :-p

-a