Shift Calls it Quits

MCS writes "Shift Magazine announced that it is closing down after 10 years. Biggest reason is that within this 10 year period they only turned profit on one issue. I remember at one point that they even had their own TV show -- the magazine was different then it competitors (Wired) as it focused more on the impact of technology and the social generation of those who lived in it. This can be seen in such issues as 'The Simpson Generation' and 'Seven Days without Tech'. Many of these articles are available online at their website Shift.com "

Comments

Reminds me of Suck.com

[djcdplaya]

Why is it that all of the really well written indie mags (both online and on paper) are slowly dying off?

No Wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never even heard of them...

Re:No Wonder

[someguyintoronto]

This is because it's a Canadian publication, and unfortunately our publishing industry faces far too intense competition from our southern neighbour.

Canadian magazines, books, etc not only have difficulty breaking into the states, but they can barely maintain recognition in Canada.

The competition comes from southern cultural import (infestation) into Canada. Additionally, our population is too small and cannot support special interest magazines.

Any Canadian publication, book, film, band, musician, actor, etc that makes it in the states generally succeeds, but unfortunately there is great talent just buried away and hidden in our igloos;)

BTW, Shift was a well put together magazine (that threw good schmooze parties to boot;), that with American backing probably would have done very well. It's a shame to seem them go. Go look at their web site to see what they were all about.

Shift?

[Mononoke]

If I'd ever heard of it, I might have bought a copy.

No, this isn't a troll. I can't say that I've ever seen this mag. I've never seen it referenced anywhere. I've just plain never heard of it.

Sorry to hear they couldn't make it.

Worst. Grammar. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

"different then it competitors". Wow. Even Taco hasn't managed that level of screw up yet.

Blink. Blink.

[porkchop_d_clown]

I'm sorry, but, focusing on the social impact of technology made them different? I thought that was the whole point of Wired!

Of course, I stopped reading Wired years ago when I realized that I was apparently too old to appreciate the crazy page layouts they used.

Defining Moments in Digital Culture

[KiahZero]

Doesn't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

3. The Slashdot Effect: Everyday netizens revolutionize newsgathering "Happens anytime Slashdot links to your site - "It's like getting hit with a tsunami," as a sysadmin once told us. When geek-news website Slashdot puts up a link to an interesting news item online, the rush of visitors can savage even the most heavily fortified servers -- producing millions of hits in a few hours. Stephen Adler's "The Slashdot Effect" paper, released in February 1999, found it caused ten-fold surges in traffic -- producing temporary, floating audiences that could rival CNN in size.

Which is precisely the point. Slashdot's arrival in 1997 wasn't just another high-tech community; it was the future of newsgathering. With thousands of techies scouring the net for stories, Slashdot's volunteer base is bigger than any major media outlet-helping them regularly break news, such as Transmeta's super-secret Crusoe chip or Microsoft's anti-Linux memos. "

Too bad they couldn't forsee their immienent doom.

Not the politically correct explanation, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they don't appeal to the large amount of people.

I've never seen Shift, and it sounds like it was a pretty boring rag to begin with [and maybe deserved to die], but if they were trying to target a geek audience, they faced one big hurdle that is damned near insurmountable: People with really high IQs populate only the very far end of the bell curve, i.e., for all intents and purposes, PEOPLE WITH REALLY HIGH IQs DON'T EXIST!!!

The overwhelming majority of people are of very average intelligence [clustered beneath the zenith of the bell curve], and are entertained by a very average quality of entertainment. The critical mass just isn't there to do much beyond that. [And besides, anyone who is smart enough to entertain really intelligent people ought to be doing something more productive with his life than masquerading as a glorified court jester.]

So from the description...

[jht]

Shift was apparently a Canadian version of Wired. I couldn't tell from their website, of course, because it was already slashdotted, but the article about the failure and the comments so far seem to point in that direction.

Of course, Wired's been a huge money sink for most of it's existence - and that's with the much larger US market to work with and bigger circulation numbers. Shift never seems to have made any real run south of the border, never was profitable, and appealed to a small segment of a small market in a small country.

I think it's amazing they survived this long, quite frankly. It's been tough enough for media companies to thrive anyway, especially one as limited as they seem to have been. There's a number of Canadian magazines that I'm aware of - some I even read occasionally. I never heard of Shift, though. That may say a little something about what their chances were right there. But at 10 years, they predated the dotcom boom and bust alike. Not many other media properties would have been allowed to lose money that long.

It was a piece of Shift

[Apostata]

Sorry, but I'm dancing on Shift magazine's grave. It stood for all of the bullshit artifice, me-too ass-kissing, and vacuous intellect that has plagued the technology/culture mag niche.

Shift magazine never had a shining moment, save for the plastic wrapping.

it was inevitable

[Anonymous Coward]

i saw this coming - any Canadian involved in publishing did. i worked for a magazine (called Vice) that was next to Shift as part of a dot com publication/shopping scenario that predictably flopped (started by the infamous Richard Szalwinski). at one time their marketing guy (nobody) was making $190, 000 U.S. - for a magazine that never turned a profit, that's not a recipe for profitability. even if they did smarten up later, they were over their head from the start. Vice, on the other hand, is now profitable and expanding due to their tight firsts when it comes to letting go of money.

Re:NOT the economy...

[jfpoole]

Do you know anyone who _ever_ paid money for it ?

I did, every month or so. While Shift wasn't as popular as Wired, I always thought it was a better magazine (less hype, more meat). Plus the fact that it was Canadian was an added bonus (at least to a Canuck like me).

That said, I'm not surprised they decided to call it quits. This has happened before (it disappeared from newsstands for a few months back in 2000, for example), and even lately it's been hard to find it at local bookstores.

There goes my plan for shitf.com

[lamz]

I have been a Shift subscriber for around 8 years -- almost since the very beginning. I have also hated the magazine all along. Why keep renewing and reading it? I guess the attraction was similar to other people's fascination with camp. I was continually fascinated by how bad the magazine was, and how adored it was by the left.

If anyone has a pile of Shift magazines, flip through them and find how many times they complained about the fact that the Atari 2600 version of PacMan sucked. Seriously -- it's been covered more than once. The writing seemed to be stuck in some kind of time-loop, like they were always looking back to the 1980s from around 1994. And smug? Don't get me started.

Anyway, I often mused about creating a parody publication called "Shitf", but now I guess I'll just let it go.

They actually profiled my software, it's a bummer!

[turnstyle]

Shift did a story on my MP3 software Andromeda>. Derek Martin, the reporter, spent a huge amount of time back-and-forthing with me via email. Nice guys, too bad...