Esquire, like Wired, is among legions of magazines whose success rides on declaring, and being trusted as a source for, the new hip product, perfume, or look.

Yes… that’s why Esquire is so often quoted and singled out as being on the forefront of the modern age… as opposed to the rich old fogeys trying to figure out what the grand-kids are doing in the basement, and whether or not there might be something to this whole “interwebs” thing…

As techies, we may today roll our eyes at Esquire’s E-Ink issue as a dated meaningless gimmick. More sensationalizing techno-utopian misinformation like much of the hype journalism that pollutes the tech world (a la Wired and Scientific American).

But given its time and audience, the Esquire issue was seen by e-ink followers as a means of kick-starting a (at teh time) quiet industry through mainstream enthusiasm. In its context, the Esquire issue introduced e-ink in a friendly, if ostentatious, way to the very consuming class that would make the production of readers fiscally possible.

Esquire, like Wired, is among legions of magazines whose success rides on declaring, and being trusted as a source for, the new hip product, perfume, or look. Esquire was hedging its bets and some of its money on e-books and e-delivery of magazines when it said to its readers upfront “you should too!” I’m glad they did.

The publication of the e-ink issue had nothing to do with making cogent arguments about e-ink or functional publishing models. They’re tricky like that.

On Monday, the Kindle 2 will become the first e-reader available globally.

This demonstrates how out-of-touch Marche is… Kindle is hardly the first globally-available reader. But then again, Esquire was the mag that thought slapping an eInk sheet on a printed magazine was the “future of publishing.” And his “transbook” name is the sort of thing a self-styled “pop culture writer” would come up with, i.e., pretty empty of meaning and missing the point of e-book readers… not to mention thinking the industry needs a slick name for the readers at all.