Take a Look at the Fine Print, So You Won’t Get Lost in Space

Check out the computer section at your local newsstand, lately? The number of digital age magazines out there is mind-boggling. I have no idea where they grow forests vast enough to provide all that pulp, month after month.

It’s an irony that the medium many complain will kill off printed matter has sparked the creation of publications. But with so many sites on the World Wide Web and so many areas of interest, it’s handy to have a printed guide. Here’s a look at some of the magazines.

Internet Underground: Hands down, the coolest Web magazine yet and one of the newest--the current issue is the fourth and best. IU, published in suburban Chicago, has exactly the right idea of how to call attention to wonderful sites its staff has found (and they consistently find worthy ones others miss)--its “net top ten” near the front of the magazine.

This month, it’s headed up by the “Abandoned Missile Base VR Tour” site that takes you on a visit to an old missile silo complex in Colorado. Then there is the “Yesterland” site (profiled in a previous Cyburbia) with info on defunct Disneyland attractions. Number three is a “Rat Pack Home Page.”

The design of IU is inventive and the writing top-notch, although both sometimes spill into excess and important topics are occasionally glossed over. But IU is the one Web magazine I read as soon as it arrives.

Internet World: The design is dull and uninviting and the content lacks the edge of IU. But the information in this magazine is enormously helpful to those who use the Web regularly. For example, this month’s edition has a cover story that rates the various search engines on the Web. Internet World more than any other magazine is for people who take their surfing seriously, a sort of combination “Consumer Reports” and “New Republic.”

the net: The design of this magazine screams “hip” so loudly, it gets in the way at times. And its list of recommended sites is so endless, it stops being meaningful. Also, the site evaluators have grown a bit weary--often stretching for a quip. But its writers do find Web gems worth a look and its lists are generally well-organized.

Online Access: One of the older magazines, it was evaluating online services and bulletin boards before the Web got going. Its look is stodgy and the placement of articles a bit disorganized. But the magazine does call attention to many interesting sites and it still provides a handy guide to what’s new with online services.

NetGuide: Packed with information, but I find many of its essays to be retreads. But its site list is well-organized by subject, and it was perhaps the first Internet magazine to provide a guide to topics out of the mainstream, such as lists of gay and lesbian interest sites.

* Cyburbia’s e-mail address is david.colker@latimes.com.