Magazines vs. The Web @ [H] Consumer

I gave up on Maximum PC a few months ago when it had 111 pages of crap ads that had little to do with the basic purpose of the magazine.
 
This is one of the better pieces I've read in a while, and it's great because it is oh-so-true.

While I agree with the fact that magazines are destined to die, MaxPC and PC Gamer will always be the best reading material while sitting on "the throne"

I know this subject has been touched on already, but I just can't see using Wi-Fi and balancing a laptop on my knees while doing the duty... just doesn't seem right. I mean, heaven forbid, you could get a spasm of some sort and the laptop could drop on the floor, or even worse... well, I'll let your imagination guide you on that one.

Or even when *GASP* the internet goes out!! What do you do then? I know I'm as lost as a 5 year old American kid in Korea when my internet goes out, so it's nice to have these things as a fallback.

Also, while traveling they are quite handy. My job takes me a lot of places and I'm always on the go. There isn't always a "hotspot" or a laptop accessible area. In these cases, a magazine can do the trick. This past trip actually was horrible because I had already read the most recent PCG and MaxPC about 5 times, and the only "fresh" computer reading material was a PCWorld magazine they had in the airport terminal. Now I know why I don't ever read that magazine.

Anyway, back to the point, I don't think magazines are going to completely die, I just think thier customer base is going to get much smaller. As long as they have an audience that will buy their material, they will stay in business. So until an invention comes along that will take a crap for me, I think I'll still be reading those publications.

I don't even want to get started on the ads though. The 1&1 ads are the WORST, and the mobile gaming one? Please, give me a break.
 
Magazines arent going anywhere.
I mostly read them when sitting on the toilet or when lying in bed at night, taking 10 min or so to read them before falling asleep. I cant see myself doing these two activities with a notebook.



Jason_Wall said:
We get a unique perspective from Josh Norem, who spent five years "behind enemy lines," as it were, at Maximum PC. Now that he's seen both sides of the tech industry, he's sharing some thoughts on why he thinks the magazine world might just go the way of the dodo - and in the not too distant future, either.



Thanks for reading!

Please support [H] Consumer and DIGG this article.
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MaxPC was never a good tech mag, but they did have the really cool article where they threw money at building the the most expensive machine they could get away with. Though there are mags that are still going to be around for a long time because they have sponsers that feel they are getting there moneys worth. A tech mag with articles that tell you less than the web based ones and later are self-defeating, but the early tech mags were based on stuff they could not be tested or on software that required know-how that web staffs did not posses. Now I'm betting even if kyle does not configure his servers him self he can go ask someone using the high tech his site is about.
 
You wouldn't get your news from a newspaper that only came out once a month, would you?

In this digital age, print content is for those content to wait, and that number is constantly shrinking.

(and for those saying "the can" is the reason for magazines, think about that for a minute)


 
The points have probably already been said, but I will say this:

Would you take your laptop with you to the bathroom? Probably not. How about a public bathroom? Only if you had it handcuffed to you the entire time, if you seriously did. Otherwise, watch RV to find out why you don't take mobile computers to public bathrooms.

Ever try reading a website on anything smaller than a laptop screen? Gets kinda hard after awhile. Some PDA phones you might be able to get away with, but outside of that, few and far between.

Public transportation - which do you think is less likely to get stolen, a magazine or a notebook computer? And if it did get stolen from you, which one are you less likely to care about? Some magazine that you paid, what $8 for, or a notebook you paid anywhere between $700-$3000 to use that just so happens to have private information on it that you need?

I still read magazines because there's something about being able to flip the pages of one and read, whether on the crapper, on a bus, or in the comfort of my own home, that just feels right. Hell, I still read books for this same reason, even though I could probably go to Amazon or some other place that sells an e-book version that I could download. i'm sorry, but I would feel severely wrong trying to scroll through a Dredsen Files novel, and I would be doing Jim Butcher a disfavor, whether I legitimately purchased it or not.

There is always that something about the printed format that technology, no matter how far advanced, will be able to replace. DVDs and CDs have proven themselves to be vastly superior to VHS, audio cassette, 8-track and LP format of recorded media. Yet how many of you still have movies on VHS, or some of your favorite artists on an outdated format that you can barely find playback equipment for anymore?

Because there's something about it that just can't be replaced. That's why.
 
I'm worried about something else WRT the transition to web-based PC enthusiast news and reviews, and that's a decline in the quality of writing. Because the web format is so open, anyone with the time and money can put together a web site for PC news and reviews, whether or not they have the level of writing ability and/or technical knowledge to produce in-depth, enriching content. I'm not a subscriber to Maximum PC, but I picked up their Feb. issue out of curiosity, and by contrast, MPC's flawless writing and stratospheric technical insight positively humbles many online PCN&R sites, with the exception of a few like [H] and AnandTech. And there are a few sites out there that I've had the displeasure of viewing, where I can't understand how they even get review samples in the first place because the finished content is so sketchy and poor. At least I'm not paying for it.

The way I see it, you can achieve success and popularity as a publication (print or online) either by being the first to report on something in some detail, or by producing the most thorough analysis of the events and phenomena in the industry (that is, being the best). Web sites are clearly advantaged in the former, but magazines like Maximum PC can stay alive if they continue to provide a depth of content that readers can't find anywhere else. Print mags can also provide insightful industry analysis to help us as enthusiasts understand where things in the industry are headed.
 
Deviationer said:
The only thing mags and new papers are good for is reading something while on the crapper.

Now mags could compete with online if products like the sony e-book reading were cheap and could do color. The mag/news paper could then publish their stuff in pdf, and you could take it with you.
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A cheaper sony ebook type reader that could do color I'd be real intersted in getting something like a PDF copy of normal mags. Yea I'd pay for the sub too. Needs to be small and have pretty good battery life too.

Hulk said:
Magazines arent going anywhere.
I mostly read them when sitting on the toilet or when lying in bed at night, taking 10 min or so to read them before falling asleep. I cant see myself doing these two activities with a notebook.
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I could see myself do it with an ebook reader as long as the screen was good. Big thing is that I don't see magazines going anywhere in the next really at least 15 years. I do see tech mags being less and less important though. Things like auto mags, cooking, hobbie mags etc don't have the issues that the tech mags do. They will hold out longer. Even some of the tech mags seem to be able to do well. Look at wired mag. They cover tech but the stuff they cover can be pushed back longer then benchmarks on the latest video cards. They will be able to stay in print a long time.
 
mashie said:
Last time I bought a PC magazine must have been in 96-97. After all why buy old news when you can get them fresh online?
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Well, Maximum PC is how the enthusiast side of my computing started -- with the best article on building and PC they ever wrote IMO. It was a 2001 issue and they built a Soyo KT266A Dragon Plus in in a beige enlight case. I built 3 systems pretty much identical with no issues. I had helped build a few times before but never my own box with no help -- wasn't new to computing or the software side but new to building. Thats the only copy of Maximum PC I didn't sell to half-price books.
 
I share Josh's distinction of having been on the editorial staff at a paper magazine and now, presently, writing for a website. People will respond to the truckloads of content on web site but they'll stick around if it's easy to digest. Poor layouts on web content are the main reason I don't frequent a lot of these sites. I'd have to say that the paper mags will draw the better talent in the art direction fields until some big publisher begins pushing it's web publishing and starts handing out decent paychecks. If someones already doing that, I stand corrected. I have no idea what the organizational structure is at any of the tech sites.

From a straight art direction standpoint, most of these sites are practically unreadable with my olde eyes. The black background with light text, on this site, gets annoying after a while. I'm not sure what the ownership/management structure is here, so I can't speak to it, but I think you'll find that most publisher based websites are designed for readability and not style.

I was a boot subscriber from around issue 16. I've been a subscriber ever since. MPC's major forte' is in presenting great how-to articles to the masses. I couldn't find my ass with both hands when it came to computers then I started reading boot and things started sorting themselves out. I'm proud to say I'm typing this post on a rig I built myself, five years ago, and it's still relavent. I get decent framerates in CoD2 and BF2 mostly due to the confidence I got from reading the how-to in MPC. I'm not a phanbouey by any stretch. I've had my issues and stated them to whoever was driving, at the time. I consider Jon Phillips reign, as editor, to be MPC's golden age. He's been incredibly helpful and candid in our correspondence. Their reliance on copious ads is starting to get annoying. The flip side is the one thing a magazine can't do is install malware on your rig that ruins your day. The old issues are great for swatting flies and shimming wobbly tables. The blow-in cards make great bookmarks too.
-Jim Stuard
'Jimijaz'
 
I used to work with Josh at Future, and had the distinction of working at GamesRadar.com. GR started out strong, but lost most of the staff due to inexperienced management and poor pay. Now, it is written mostly by freelancers and unpaid interns -- sad to say Josh is correct in his dismissive assessment of GR nowadays.

I'm now a producer at a major design firm making high-end gaming accessories, but print reviews of our product still figure highly in our marketing plans. However, online reviews that hit on time with retail shipments are quickly becoming the #1 priority for us.

On the other hand, gaming magazines may keep their prominence over the web sites longer simply because the old cadre of PR managers at the various game publishers feel that print magazines have much more tangible appeal. This generation of executives manage purely based on "how many pages of coverage", or "how many covers" the PR manager gets for each game they rep. Until that perception goes away, you'll continue to see publishers hold the particularly juicy exclusives for print. "Web exclusives" are merely the scraps that the print mags didn't want/didn't have room for.

Sadly, editorial executives manage writers the same way: "how many exclusives did you get?" is a common metric that they hold editors to. Thus, cementing the relationship between editorial and advertising irrevocably.

Greg Vederman laid out the facts for me one day when I mentioned how astonishingly huge his mag used to be (I spotted a 2000 duke nukem issue for the record). For those of you lamenting the fact that PC Gamer is 1/4 of the size it was just 6 or 7 years ago, you have no further to look than the likes of EA, Sony, Microsoft, and other major publishers who went on a buying spree and purchased every available developer they could. The reason that there were so many pages in those older mags was simply because there were so many games. A smaller developer had to put out at least a couple of games per year--and there used to be scores of small developers, in addition to the big boys--just read through those old PCG's and try and spot an indie dev team that still exists today--it's not easy.

Once they were purchased by a major label, that team would be put to work on a major sequel that, at best, would be released on a yearly cycle--but the development of current games has hit a much longer cycle, with much higher investment, as we all know.

So the number of games has drastically been reduced. PCG gets every single ad that there is to get, simply put, and they put out a very high percentage of the stories that are currently relevant. There just isn't the prosperity in the PC gaming industry that there used to be.
 
The folks over at Maximum PC are discussing it here.

Short summary: They disagree with the premise.
 
Thanks for the link, Josh. I found something very interesting. This is from Will Smith, MaxPC E-i-C, on the MaxPC forum discussion:
This is really the same-old same-old. Every few months someone comes out and pronounces that the magazine is dead. It started about 5 minutes after the first person saw an image on a web page, and many smart folks have fallen into the same trap. I'm pretty surprised that Josh jumped on that bandwagon so quickly after leaving, I didn't realize he was quite so fickle.

It's funny though, because many of the things that he lists as negatives I would consider positives. Frankly, I have no interest in reading a 20 page system review that devotes two pages to opening the box and the construction of the shipping package. Nor do I really want to read a videocard review that has 300 different benchmarks that don't even measure the videocard's performance.

He also completely failed to mention the value of content that's unique to Maximum PC. We do a lot of original features and how-tos that no one on the web is doing. When we realized that we couldn't compete on day-and-date product launch coverage, we switched our focus to create more original content to further up our value to consumers.

That said, we have been guilty of ignoring our website for too long, and that's done. It's too early to really talk about anything, but in the next few months, we're going to relaunch MaximumPC.com. We've spent a lot of time getting the design and structure right

We don't want to go after Anand, Tom, or [H]; we're just going to bring Maximum PC-style writing and reporting to the web. I've probably already said too much, but I think you guys will like it when unveil it in early May.
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Besides the rebuff to Josh on the topic and the potshot at the thoroughness [H]ardOCP's system evaluation program, I found the resounding confidence in the print media industry a little surprising.

completely failed to mention the value of content that's unique to Maximum PC. We do a lot of original features and how-tos that no one on the web is doing.
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OK - for the record, the last few "original" how-to's that "no one else is doing"

  • How to "hack" Gmail
  • How to stream video from your webcam to the internet
  • How to backup your hard drive

Linkage

hmmm.......
 
OK - for the record, the last few "original" how-to's that "no one else is doing"

* How to "hack" Gmail
* How to stream video from your webcam to the internet
* How to backup your hard drive
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While those are some current ones, they are not the latest.
~The latest, that are not on the website are how to trouble shoot Vista (have not seen that anywhere else). Also includes how to properly install as to eliminate or lower error problems.
~Also how to build a nice "PC Fix-it Kit," never seen that on this website.

While I am not bad mouthing [H], since they have provided very good reviews in the past, and will continue in the future I am sure. Magazines are something that will be here to stay for along time. Until the portable PC is able to stream full (readable) articles on the go, a magazine will be what we want when traveling.

Also reading a magazine gives new perspectives on a machine, in different reviews. While [H] does a full review from order/package/etc, the magazines will get you many of the same references, but with a different perspective. Having to many reviews on a product is never a bad thing, I actually look for as many as I can if buying something of high value.

On the note of advertisement, it is going to be everywhere. Go to the main page of [H] and tell me if there are zero advertisements...There are, while a magazine might "seem" to have more, it is all relative. This website is not flooded with them there are still plenty to go around. In a magazine you can not really "skip over" a advertisement, while you do not have to read it, it is still there. On a website you do not have to click it, but it is still there in front of you. On the page v page of it, this past mag I just got was meh in advertisement, but it did not kill the magazine.
~Plus if they bother you that much you can always rip them out of the magazine, you can not do that on a website.
 
Josh_Norem said:
The folks over at Maximum PC are discussing it here.

Short summary: They disagree with the premise.
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What I gleaned from Will's comments is that our article pissed them off so much that they're going to start working on their web interface again.

After all of his griping was said and done, he's basically saying we're right about the advantages of the Web. ;)
 
Magazines aren't going anywhere.

Me and him also agree on this statement:
"It's funny though, because many of the things that he lists as negatives I would consider positives. Frankly, I have no interest in reading a 20 page system review that devotes two pages to opening the box and the construction of the shipping package."

​
I read magazines for entertainment, or when I am "away".

I hit the [H] (or the net) when I want to know something that the companies havent fucked with or made biased.

The one thing the big magazines will never be able to pull off is to make you feel like you are a part of the "machine". Even though I have only posted 1 news link that actually made front page and that was years ago, i still feel like a "part" of the [H].

I have had a MPC subscription much longer than I have had a bookmark assigned to the [H] but I have never once felt liek a part of the magazine.

Come to think of it... why the hell do i feel like I am a part of this place..... !i need a tinfoil hat!

Hell I have a mousepad, and even a damn T-shirt! (believe it or not I found the shirt at purple heart.) I couldn't pass up an [H] shirt for a buck.
 
well if you've worked with those people I have a question for you:

Why dont magazines just join together, say 3 or 4 different ones setting their differences apart and producing ONE GIANT super magazine each month? This way everyone wins, no? yes? no?

Storm Shadow said:
I used to work with Josh at Future, and had the distinction of working at GamesRadar.com. GR started out strong, but lost most of the staff due to inexperienced management and poor pay. Now, it is written mostly by freelancers and unpaid interns -- sad to say Josh is correct in his dismissive assessment of GR nowadays.

I'm now a producer at a major design firm making high-end gaming accessories, but print reviews of our product still figure highly in our marketing plans. However, online reviews that hit on time with retail shipments are quickly becoming the #1 priority for us.

On the other hand, gaming magazines may keep their prominence over the web sites longer simply because the old cadre of PR managers at the various game publishers feel that print magazines have much more tangible appeal. This generation of executives manage purely based on "how many pages of coverage", or "how many covers" the PR manager gets for each game they rep. Until that perception goes away, you'll continue to see publishers hold the particularly juicy exclusives for print. "Web exclusives" are merely the scraps that the print mags didn't want/didn't have room for.

Sadly, editorial executives manage writers the same way: "how many exclusives did you get?" is a common metric that they hold editors to. Thus, cementing the relationship between editorial and advertising irrevocably.

Greg Vederman laid out the facts for me one day when I mentioned how astonishingly huge his mag used to be (I spotted a 2000 duke nukem issue for the record). For those of you lamenting the fact that PC Gamer is 1/4 of the size it was just 6 or 7 years ago, you have no further to look than the likes of EA, Sony, Microsoft, and other major publishers who went on a buying spree and purchased every available developer they could. The reason that there were so many pages in those older mags was simply because there were so many games. A smaller developer had to put out at least a couple of games per year--and there used to be scores of small developers, in addition to the big boys--just read through those old PCG's and try and spot an indie dev team that still exists today--it's not easy.

Once they were purchased by a major label, that team would be put to work on a major sequel that, at best, would be released on a yearly cycle--but the development of current games has hit a much longer cycle, with much higher investment, as we all know.

So the number of games has drastically been reduced. PCG gets every single ad that there is to get, simply put, and they put out a very high percentage of the stories that are currently relevant. There just isn't the prosperity in the PC gaming industry that there used to be.
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