The Miserable State of Tech Publishing

11/09/2005 00:01 Filed in: Technology

My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer in 1982. I've always been an avid reader (as some of you know), and as long as I've used computers, I've subscribed to and read a wide variety of computer magazines over the years. In the eighties, even as a teenager, I had subscriptions to magazines such as Personal Computing and Family Computing, neither of which are still in publication. Later, I subscribed to PC Magazine, PC World and PC/Computing (the latter of which is no longer in print). When I switched to the Macintosh platform in 1998, I subscribed to MacWorld and MacToday. I still get both, but MacToday transformed into MacDesign and now Layers. When my subscription to Layers expires next year I won't be renewing since it has lost its primary Mac focus. The Adobe-colored substance on Scott Kelby's nose doesn't impress me.

A lot of the tech magazines, across all platforms, have not adjusted well to the internet. With tech websites updating their information hourly, it's impossible for tech magazines to deliver anything like news in the truest sense of what the word means. And unfortunately, the publishers haven't figured out how to adapt. I still have a handful of the old Personal Computing magazines from a couple of decades ago. The difference between the depth of the stories back then and what exists now is amazing. Current magazines focus on short articles that often feel more like advertisements than real tech journalism. Tech magazines today could adapt by focusing on in-depth analysis and comparisons, interviews with industry figures and innovators, commentary, and help and tips columns (the latter of which is the only real value to me in a magazine like MacWorld). These kinds of foci are not overly dependent upon "breaking news" which has dominated tech publishing for so long.

Last Wednesday, Chris Howard wrote a piece called "Is the Web Killing the Computer Magazine?" As a follow-up the next day, Charles Moore responded with "Are Computer Magazines Going the Way of the Dodo?" I responded to Mr. Moore's article and he published my thoughts and those of others on Friday.

For those of you who may have missed that, I have reproduced my email below (slightly touched-up from the original).

Re: Are Computer Magazines Going the Way of the Dodo?

From Rick Mansfield

Your column got me going. I posted in the comments (twice!), but I wanted to make sure you saw it, so I'm pasting it below:

I agree that Mac magazines (and any computer magazine for that matter) is at a disadvantage because they really can't do "news" anymore. By the time it's in print, it’s no longer NEWs.

However, that doesn’t mean that computer magazines couldn’t adapt. What could they offer? They could offer exclusive opinion and in-depth analysis that’s not available on the web, at least not for a certain period of time. A long (i.e. in-depth) article reads better in my arm chair than on my computer screen for me.

But what's happened to Mac magazines? Take MacWorld for instance. Compared to the issues published ten or fifteen years ago, it's anemic. I know that advertising can play a role, but the articles themselves have been dumbed down. They don’t have the depth that they did years ago; there's not near as much detail in their analysis.

And regarding MacWorld, what happend to the columns? There’s no more David Pogue, no more Andy Ihnatko. Dig through your stacks and find an old issue of MacUser. They had great columns that weren’t afraid to say negative things about Apple or the computer industry when deserved. When was the last time you read anything negative about Apple in MacWorld? Conflict of interest--Apple advertises in MacWorld.

Remember when Dvorak used to write a column for MacUser? How mad everyone would get at him? When was the last time an article in MacWorld Magazine stirred your passions? And speaking of which, if MacWorld was supposed to "incorporate" MacUser as the covers said a few years ago, whatever happened to that?

And how come the Brits still have MacUser and we don't? Is the American market smaller than the British market for a Mac magazine? I doubt it. And how come the British MacWorld magazine is TWICE the size of the American edition? And why do they have different (and often better) articles?

Oh, I think there’s still a place for a Mac or tech magazine, but unfortunately, there's no vision among American publishers.

And one more thing now that I’m ranting on MacWorld… why do they feel like they have to mislead their readers when it comes time to re-subscribe?

The standard price for a MacWorld subscription is $19.95. If you are a subscriber, about six months into your subscription, they send you a renewal notice with a bill for $34.95! I guess they think you won’t be paying attention or you won’t remember how much you paid last time and you’ll just write a check and send it in. I’ve both emailed and called about this practice which I think is dishonest and manipulative. I've yet to get a satisfactory explanation. They just always offer to renew for $19.95. I can’t get it across to them that their giving me a lower (original price) offer is NOT the point.

I was so ticked that when my subscription was about to run out a few months ago, I decided not to re-subscribe--even at the $19.95 price. I figured if I saw an issue on the stands that I felt I really needed, I'd buy it then. Heck, they put their best stuff on line anyway.

So at the final week before my subscription was about to run out, would you believe they sent me a "professional discount offer" for $12.95?

At that price, I took it.