Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, according to this story, is optimistic on the future of online magazines. “He predicts a dedicated device will be created within the next several years that will be used for reading electronic-based editorial content.”

“We’re waiting for the iPod of reading. Someone’s going to invent it. And when that happens that’s going to be a huge advantage to us,” Weisberg told This Is Not A Blog, a webzine produced by the Digital Journalism class of New York University.

I don’t know about the chances of a “dedicated device” for reading maybe there’s a better chance for bigger screen music players or next generation PDAs (with music players) with better support for PDF and not those proprietary e-book formats.

Another interesting point in the story is that Slate editors “learned early on that most people don’t like reading long articles online. If a story requires more than 1,000 words, it is usually broken into installments.” Read the full article here.