Magazines vs. The Web: End of an Era @ [H] Consumer

Vikingod

Source: [H] Consumer
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Many of you may not know my professional history, but I am a former editor for Maximum PC magazine. I spent approximately five years there writing features, reviewing hardware, writing how-tos, and eventually served as a Senior Editor.

I recently decided to move to Austin, TX in order to escape the Bay Area’s obscene housing market, and ended up landing at [H] Consumer. I’ve been working here since September, and the whole time I’ve been adjusting to the “Web” lifestyle and thinking about which medium is better suited to delivering hardware news. Of course, when I worked at the magazine I rarely questioned its ability to compete in the marketplace with all the Web upstarts. But now that I’ve been immersed in the Web world for awhile, when I stand back and look at the situation, I think magazines are destined to fail at this enterprise. And I can think of three reasons why.

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BlueMak

Don't know for how long it is going on, but when I returned in Greece summer 2006, all computer related magazines that were not only professional related, every month they have a free game or two. Full ones. Today I got the PC Master and it had the Mystery of the Mummy. The second edition of the same magazine had Imperial Glory. etc. Perhaps this is a good solution to the problem. Plus, you can't take a web site to the bathroom. Well, not without worrying you will ruin some equipment.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

DudeBoyz

I have always liked publishing on the web vs print. Much more freedom in most cases, as he indicated. You can take the time to write the article YOU want to write, and not be limited nearly as much by space. Lots of pics and screen shots. It's all good...

Sandok

We've had that for quite a while in CH... A good 5 years at least... I remeber I got MotoCross madness 2 like that

niceguyrichy

thats why you use the work laptop. if you drop it in the bath you just dry it out , then tell tech support that it stopped working for absolutely no reason..

I've never had a full free game on the front of my comp magazine btw. plenty of free software, but no games. are there any general pc mags in the UK that give away full games on the cover disc?

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BlueMak

Late 80s early 90s I remember ST Format (among others) placing full games on the cover disks (There used to be a shop about 2km from my place that imported (yes imported) magazines from the UK).
I remember reading about a PC magazine having once a full game on the cover about 2 years ago, but no details. Perhaps someone else will know.

(for the last at least 4 years I haven't seen any IIRC)

But if you come to Greece for a weekend, you can buy like 7 magazines nad get around 13 games lol. So for 100 quid you get a weekend in greece and 13 retails games (1.5-4 years old)

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

DudeBoyz

Another good thing about online is you can search the text for key words, phrases.