Slashdot Mirror
Hard Goodbye to Alice and Bill
cuzality writes "Computer Shopper has decided to let 'The Hard Edge' go after twelve years and two months of 'edgy, sarcastic, reader-centric columns' by Alice and Bill. Many of us remember 'The Hard Edge' from all the way back when it was in the newsprint section of the inch-thick Computer Shopper, and it's always been the straight skinny direct from the Lab of Doom and Pepsi Cola. Though 'The Hard Edge' has met its untimely and abrupt end, Alice and Bill aren't splitting up: they will continue on together at AliceandBill.com, where they write about technology news and will be happy to accept your kind PayPal donation." (More below.)
"They are also signing up subscribers for an upcoming newsletter, but since they can't use the name 'The Hard Edge' (which is owned by C|Net, CS's parent company), they will have to use some alternate name, possibly 'Hedge Yard.' If you were loyal 'Hard Edge' reader, drop by and write them a nice note in their guestbook."
Taken from dreambook.com:
Name: Michael Franklin
Homepage URL: http://snmmedia.com
Comments: Hi Guys,
I have been reading your column ever since you had a column. I was saddened when I read that your latest column would be your last. I emailed Computer Shopper to voice my support for you and tell them I would never read their publication again and in fact, would probably use my existing pages of CS for some sort of nefarious activity involving dog poop.
I won't uses the pages of your column for puppy pages though, but it is an apt metaphor for how I feel right now. Like CS pooped on us all.
I donated to the cause and have bookmarked your site. You guys are the best and I hope to hear more of your unbiased opinions in the future.
Friday, October 8th 2004 - 01:15:52 PM
Well, as much as I loved computer shopper back in the early 1990s I stopped reading it somewhere in the late 1990s. I saw it recently on a magazine rack and was quite disappointed to see it being thin and boring. I loved to spend hours pouring over its pages looking for deals and daydreaming of the best computer I could buy on my budget. I enjoyed them because they were different not because they were the same. They offered something that made them stand out against all the other magazines. Why they would change formats to be like everyone else I'll never know.
CS didn't let you down when they dropped Alice and Bill's article they let you down years ago when they changed formats. From what I read online I can only imagine that this will continue the downhill slide that CS has taken since I stopped reading it all those years ago.
You man people still read ComputerShopper?
Back in the day, when computer parts weren't for sale at your local supermarket - back when you had to go to a special store just to be diskettes - ComputerShopper filled a need.
Barely.
It was always a bear to find, say, all ads for tape drives, and to compare the prices of each vendor. It was a PAIN to locate anything special - you spent more time than it was worth to flip through the 8000 pages of ads to find the ones selling what you want.
Now, you go to [Google/Froogle/Yahoo/eBay/...] and type in a quick search, and there you are.
Next you'll tell me that there are still people reading Byte!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I've read CS from time to time over the years and never noticed that column. Is there really a large following, or was this just a last ditch attempt to get some attention and money by this Alice and Bill?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Kinda strange.
Computer shopper used to have hundreds of pages, and they weren't littl 8-1/2" by 11" pages. This was a BIG book...
HUGE ads. Remember those Viewsonic birds? Full page, in color. 21" monitors for $2000. Pages of RAM, CPU, motherboards, floppy drives, keyboards. Bargains all over. Giant Dell and Gateway Ads, Micron, Midwest Micro.
I would honestly buy a couple back issues if I could find some on eBay. They're like computer time machines. Mine were all thrown out as pages were highlighted, torn out, and became dog eared.
Truly an icon of the PC industry in the early 90's.
Now, with sites like Pricewatch, and everyone and their brother selling PC parts at low cost, they've basically faded into just another junk computer magazine. 60-70 regular size pages. The last one I read covered video cards and 'case mods'. Basically a 'PC World'. The internet killed computer magazines, especially those like Computer Shopper.
I quit reading ComputerShopper years ago - probably around 2000 or so.
I didn't like that they were trying to take it in the "Buyers Guide" direction. I really did enjoy sifting through hundreds of ads from clone manufacturers all over the country, looking for deals.
I also enjoyed most of the old school articles that were HEAVILY techie slanted - you could actually learn useful things back then.
I guess the Internet has been slowly killing it - that and the watered down content. The Shopper peaked during the mid and late 90's and then it spiraled down from there.
You can get ripped off just as easily today. Back then, you used word of mouth to find out who was good and who was not. I had great success dealing with reputable companies that advertised in CS.
The reason why the guy yelled at you was because the Computer Shopper pricing models were cutthroat. The price checks were often done by competing retailers so they could undercut someone else - even by a buck - in print. There was a 3 month lag back then between ad submission and print. You see the issue.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I also periodically get "one year free trial offers" for it, and therefore have never paid for it. Yes, they want a credit card number for "automatic" renewal. I usually have at least one old card around from when I last took a "introductory 0.99% life-of-loan no-fee balance transfer!!!!!" offer up. I feed that number in, cancel the card when the first magazine arrives, and ignore any renewal notices I get. I have one less piece of plastic to keep track of, one more bank who desperately wants to offer me silly things to use their credit card, and some free reading material. Since trash removal is included in my rent, no problem for me. Not so good for the people giving me free magazines, but that's also no problem for me.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Computer Shopper went down the tubes when Ziff-Davis bought it from Stan Veit, told all the "classic computer" columnists to buzz off, and turned it into a PClone-only rag.
As has been copiously noted, it lost its only remaining function when it became far easier to get far more up-to-date data on the Web. I'm not sure whether I saved any of the 1000+ page issues from the era when I called it "Deforestation Monthly," but it's sad to see it now at about 170 pages. The date of its demise can't be that far off.
Ok, excellent point-- but how would Computer Shopper help you? Of the 1000 pages, probably 900 were just advertising... it wasn't Computer Reviewer.
The ads WERE cool! You could see pictures, read specs, find that wierd little adapter you needed, find stuff that you didn't even know existed, see all the different vendors, etc. It was fun! Plus, you could just keep it by the toilet, and peruse and peruse and peruse. It was almost as cool as finding a really cool computer store that has all kinds of *stuff* (the kind of store that doesn't exist any more).
I don't respond to AC's.
The evolution (devolution) of Computer Shopper fits the natural way computer magazines have always progressed (regressed), a phenomenon that predates the Internet by many years (I was griping about it as early as 1983 when it happened to the likes of Creative Computing and InfoWorld).
Normally, computer magazines start out being of, by, and for enthusiasts / hobbyists / "geeks", and are interestingly quirky as a result, but over the years they gradually become more "mainstream", slick, and corporate, with editorial policies dictated by the advertisers (and, specifically, the ones who buy full-page, full-color ads, not mom-and-pop classifieds) rather than the desires of the current readers (the management starts pining after the holy grail of a huge mainstream readership they hope to find if their content can be made more acceptable to Corporate America).
Usually, they fail to get this mass readership or the big ad dollars it's supposed to produce, so they go out of business in the end; maybe they could have survived if they kept their original format and a budget based on a cult-following audience instead of pipe dreams of something bigger.
--Dan
Web Tips