Rolling Stone goes all digital

ROLLING STONE, Bible of spliff-clouded dad-rockers everywhere, is planning to roll its own social network, according to GigaOM.

Uh-oh, it's bad enough when they commandeer the remote control to tell you what "real" music sounds like but it's too much to bear when grandad wants to get with the computer age.

The plan, which involves getting readers to help compile best-of lists and other such community nonsense, sounds drearier than a Steeleye Span album and is unlikely to do much to counter the acid flashbacks for Strolling Bone readers.

Face it, these pricey music magazines get bought for the cover disk and maybe the big interview, and Big Media has a dreadful record - think Coldplay - when it comes to web credentials. The days of Crawdaddy et al have gone and Rolling Stone stopped being a must-read somewhere around the release of Street Legal. The rest is silence. µ