Underwhelming at best (Ford Tundra on page two, Travelers on the back cover) and thin at worst (no big inserts or fold-outs), one gets the impression that Time didn't sell its advertisers on the redesign launch issue itself, but on a larger, cultural shift for the brand. Stengel wrote in his editor's note: "This issue of Time marks a new chapter for us. The magazine has a new look and structure. ... It's part of a series of changes -- beginning with the shift this past January of getting the magazine to you before the weekend--that we are making to create a Time that is more meaningful and more forward looking."

If that sounds like a patriotic slice of Americana from Stengel, it is. If the Internet is electronic music, Time is like the Rolling Stones: still touring, still classic, but, unlike the 1960s and 70s, Time is forced to share time with bedroom beat makers. To make the leap, Stengel went back to its archives to take "the DNA of Time and adapt it to the 21st Century." The result: a "Briefing" section up front for the attention deficient. In its "well," Nation, World and Business and something called "Downtime" designed to "help you make entertainment choices for the weekend."

That Time decided to unveil its redesign with a cover story -- "How The Right Went Wrong" -- about the state of the GOP didn't win it any conservative friends. The cover, featuring a tear-shedding Ronald Reagan, was plastered across the blogosphere (and even made the top of Drudge). It also marked the 58th time Reagan has appeared on the cover of Time, according to the magazine's online archive (the first being on October 7, 1966, when the actor-turned politician was becoming "the most magnetic crowd puller California has seen since John F. Kennedy first stumped the state in 1960"). The tear was photoshopped, of course.

In its ode to Web 2.0, the magazine added contextual links, blogs and opened up its weekly interview to the masses, soliciting questions from the Web.

We may poke a little fun at Time from time to time, but a redesign on this kind of scale is a big deal, and not for the faint of heart. There's a lot riding on this for Stengel and, in many ways, the future of magazines. (If this all sounds like a slice of electronica, it is.) It's smart to change, to innovate. It's hard, but not impossible to envision a newsstand without Time. (Despite Keith Richards' stubborness for living, the Rolling Stones will eventually stop touring.) Stengel had to try to get younger, quicker, cleaner. Time will tell if it all worked.

Time | March 26, 2007 | 3.75 (out of 5)

[Dylan Stableford is mediabistro.com's managing editor, media news and editor of FishbowlNY. He can be reached at dylan AT mediabistro DOT com.]