I don't think I get this. They could have put together a blog or similar website which they pushed articles of this type out to once a month, with all the convenience of linking and being able to view the content (there's very little imagery in this edition) in whatever platform you already use. Instead they've chosen a digital imitation of a physical magazine, which you need some kind of specialised reader to read, wont be indexed by google and will make it hard to reference. Am I missing something?
I have to say it's a pleasure to read something in this format rather than just another blog site. I think it gives a different feel, a clean-ness, something I can't really explain, that's missing from most websites. Maybe it's simply the typesetting?
In the "Up Front" section they make it clear that they're trying to re-create the magazine feel, and that they're experimenting with this, so I expect it will change. I look forward to seeing where it ends up.
It will make it easier to cite, Issue X, pages 1 - 3, and since they chose pdf there is less of a chance that they'll update/change it. I agree it breaks the web a little, you can't comment on articles or link directly to them, but that's a trade off I'm sure they thought through.
Google indexes pdf's so I don't know where you go the idea that they didn't.
It would also be easier to have conversations about. Instead of forcing everyone who wants to talk about a particular article to download the whole PDF, you can link them directly to the article (and with a better Web, you could link them to the exact sentence and paragraph you want to draw their attention to).
I might be an edge case here, but I regularly print web pages to PDF so that I can ship them around to various devices when I'm travelling and either don't have access to the internet, or I'm not able to connect (on an airplane, for example).
Also, a PDF reader is specialized in the same way a browser is specialized; they're both essentially ubiquitous now.
