I had meant to mark the moment (or near enough) when my copy of Esquire Magazine’s 75th Anniversary Issue (October 2008 cover date), with the much-hyped electronic ink flashing cover, would run out of battery power and become inert.

The moment passed sometime last week, and somehow, I didn’t notice it. I must have been really preoccupied, because I’ve got the magazine perched on my dresser, amidst clutter but clearly the centerpiece of my daily mess. I guess I got so used to the constant on-off blinking of headlines over the past eight months that the animation no longer stood out for me. Thus, the cessation of that typographical motion didn’t faze me.

True to form, the lack of juice doesn’t mean the cover is now blank. All the type and small graphics are now frozen into place, looking much as they would on a regular printed page. They just no longer “move”. Key feature of e-ink.

Anyway. An eight-month lifespan for e-ink gimmickry. During that time, Amazon has pushed the display technology somewhat into the mainstream with the Kindle, presumably making hard-copy experiments like Esquire’s somewhat superfluous. I know that magazine hasn’t repeated this little experiment, despite having exclusive use of the application for 2009. A nice footnote in the history of publishing, but ultimately didn’t amount to much.