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Zeichick's Take: PC Magazine and the changing media world


By Alan Zeichick
November 24, 2008 — 
PC Magazine, one of the most venerable and respected computer magazines in the United States, announced last week that it's switching to "digital only." In other words, after the January 2009 issue, the magazine's gone. Instead, the editors, writers and advertisers can be found on the Web in the new "PCMag Digital Network."

PC Magazine's demise represents a benchmark in a steady, inexorable movement of media onto the Internet. It's not just magazines. If you use the Netflix movie rental service, you can have DVDs delivered to your door or watch films streamed over the Internet. If you love music, you can buy CDs from your favorite store, or get digital downloads from Apple, Amazon.com and others.

The PC Magazine announcement hits closer to home with me, on a personal level, than Netflix's "Watch Instantly" movie downloads: Since 1984 I've been in the print publishing business, creating technical periodicals like SD Times.

While I've never worked for Ziff Davis Media, publisher of PC Magazine, the 27-year-old publication has long earned my respect. Its passing represents a sad end of an era. However, I can't claim to be surprised. On the business level, Ziff Davis Media's parent company has been in financially dire straits for years, and it has been refinancing and restructuring itself while slashing expenses. Killing the print edition of PC Magazine as a money-saving move was bound to happen.

On another level, the types of articles that made PC Magazine famous—product reviews and consumer how-to articles—fit more naturally onto the Web than in print. If you're looking for a new 24-inch flat-screen monitor, a 12-megapixel digital camera, cutting-edge music-editing software or a roundup of featherweight Windows notebooks, you want a searchable content database. With the right software, you can find exactly what you want and see it in the exact the form you prefer. That means the Web.

The same is true with technical information for developers. If you want a code snippet, a tutorial on a specific .NET API or a primer on creating iPhone applications, you'll look first on the Web—and you'll find what you're looking for. If you're searching, search the Web. What about print, like SD Times? That's best when you're not searching, but rather are looking for something interesting to read, something that will inform, entertain and educate you. While PC Magazine is going away, SD Times is here to stay.

Alan Zeichick is editorial director of SD Times. Read his blog at ztrek.blogspot.com.


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