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On-Line Magazine for Students

This potential for interactivity figures heavily into the magazine's plans for the future, and the editors are already working to provide readers with features not available in traditional print publications.

An article on plagarism on college campuses, written by Aaron R. Cohen '00 and adapted, with permission, from an article he had written for Fifteen Minutes, included an on-line e-mail poll of readers. According to this poll, 80 percent of respondents admitted to cheating, while only 19 percent of those said they had been caught.

"The interactive capabilities afforded by the Web are part of what differentiates 360 from print magazines," writes Isenberg, who is a Crimson editor, in an e-mail message. "Having read a movie review, readers can link to the movie's official home page. 360 also offers a list of sites, updated every other week, that appeal particularly to the 360 audience."

Dale has high hopes for the interactivity of his magazine which, he says, has grown to 12,000 readers each month since its inauguration on Dec. 2.

"We're going to try to do more interactivity," he says. "We're going to try and do live simulcasts of events, like concerts."

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The magazine will soon feature real audio recordings of interviews with writers and rock bands, such as the Indigo Girls. It also plans to add on-line forums or chat rooms so readers can discuss articles and other issues.

In addition, Dale says, the magazine will soon add a registration page so that it can see who is accessing the site. Current information indicates that "about 20 percent of hits are international," with readers from such countries as Finland, Slovakia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

For now, 360, which Dale runs out of his home office during his spare time, is not taking in any advertising revenues. Dale says this is a conscious decision on the part of the magazine's editors.

"We've been contacted by several people who want to advertise," he says. "I want to make this a really quality magazine and then worry about advertising."

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