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Ask Slashdot: Does Europe Have Better Magazines Than the US?
An anonymous reader writes "Now that all the large chain book stores have disappeared from the landscape, I visited my local independent book store. In the basement I found a dazzling array of amazing magazines from the UK and Germany. Not only were the magazines impressive, they included CDs and DVDs of material. Nearly every subject was there: Knitting, Photography, Music, Linux, and Fitness. I snapped up a magazine called 'Computer Music,' which had a whole issue dedicated to making house music, including a disc of extra content. I subscribe to U.S. magazines like Wired, 2600, & Make, but their quality seems to ebb and flow from issue to issue and I don't ever recall a bonus disc. Are the UK magazines really better? If yes, why and which of them do you subscribe to? The other interesting thing about them is they weren't filled with tons of those annoying subscription cards. What is the best way to subscribe?"
EU Linux mags rock, especially the UK versions.
Twenty years ago I was amazed at the quality of the UK magazines, in my case, Amiga computing & gaming rags, that came with floppy disks chocked full of stuff--barely a sector free. The value was far greater than what's available this side of the pond, and nothing has changed.
I do design work and find that most magazines especially if they pertain to computers are very nice. The paper is usually a very heavy stock glossy with a larger format. Also, there are a lot of detailed 'how to' articles with examples. The only real downside is that they seem at least 2 to 3 times as expensive and US counterparts, always on par price wise with a good paperback novel. I used to sit in the bookstore and drink coffee while reading those magazines but never buying. They were a good source of information, but they were IMHO too expensive to buy.
Europeans live on an infrastructure that supports pedestrian life. So, there's more likelihood for walking past magazine stands and making those impulse buys. The only time I ever see magazines is if I happen to pass by that aisle in the grocery store. And, some mags I admit I *would* buy on an impulse if I were exposed to them more often even though they're not topical enough for me to google for. For example, tonight was was in the grocery store and passed an aisle while waiting for my GF. I was thumbing through the guns and hunting mags and given a few more minutes I might have picked one up.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Here in Australia, we get American and English magazines equally. I hardly ever burn ISO's for Linux, but rather buy a magazine every few months and so have good-quality boot/install/recover disks around all the time. The articles aren't bad -- I've learned about some cool apps there -- but I buy the mags for the disks mainly. And they're all UK magazines, now that I think about it. This presumably goes back to when Amigas and C64s were hip; there were always gaming magazines with playable demo disks.
Everything is better in europe.
Their healthcare, their food, their government, their women, their cars, their tv, their bathrooms, their internet.
I heard they all have supercomputers for their desktops but aren't allowed to tell us americans cus we'll be too embarrassed.
A lot of the UK special interest magazines are by Future Publishing. A company with roots back to 8-bit magazines like Zzap64 and Crash. I think they're partly responsible for raising the game in the UK market.
Ah, I'm glad that we could get the redundant "what? the US isn't the ENTIRE WORLD, YOU KNOW" post out of the way. I bet you're eagerly awaiting your first "yeah but slashdot is a US-centric site" so you can counter with your well-planned "sure, but the internet spans the WHOLE WORLD so we deserve equal treatment" comment.
-Eleventy Billion, Redundant
moox. for a new generation.
Oh god, it's like you're inside our heads!
No really, that's so dead-on it's creepy.
If you have any interest in politics or world affairs: The Economist. Most news these days is like candyfloss; by comparison, the Economist is like a huge, succulent steak. Don't be fooled by its thinness: it's the only magazine I've ever come across where I actually want to read 90% or more of the articles in each and every issue. There's just a lot less of the fluff, filler, and advertising which pads out many thicker magazines.
I once read somewhere "c't is a magazine worth learning german for".
c't is a technology magazine somewhere between casual and pro, and deals with gadgets, computers and their peripherals, mobile phones and more. It reviews the quality of service of hardware vendors, ISPs and such, reports on wage situations in the IT-field and the occasional game. Being very broad in content, they still manage to go indepth (?) if questions arise via reader feedback. I have yet to find a publication in that field that matches the quality of research, writing and running this fine line of easy consumable content without being shallow.
Also they used to have the most hilarious April fools articles.
They have a sister magazine called IX, which focuses on linux and security. It's outside my competence field, so i can't say much about it, but it seems it's quite good, regarding to my linux-loving peers.
The best thing about European newspaper stands is that they often display magazines which feature topless women on the cover.
It's really nice to be able to look to your right as you walk down the street and see multiple nice pairs of tits on display like tennis shoes.
Of course that's got nothing on the red light district in Amsterdam, but I can see I'm getting off topic...
What about the official My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic magazine?
Well, in Europe, most people can read and write. Consequently books and magazines are more popular and can cater to a more advanced demographic.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Well, that just shows you how much the USA has 'loosed' already... 'No child left behind' simply meant that all children got left behind.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They not only have better magazines, they have better weapons in general.
For example the FN P90 has 50 rounds in its magazine, and its out of the way on the stock.
Say is Israel included in this definition of Europe? The Tavor is a very nice assault rifle.
Well, I'm from Germany and can only describe the situation here, but "bonus" discs really are pretty standard for a long time now. Especially with computer and gaming magazines, although some have abandoned them for online content.
For example, Linux magazines often provide a disc with the software that is reported about in the magazine, and often they're also bootable (rescue systems, latest Debian, whatever) which comes in very handy in case you're system broke down and thus can't get online (happened to me once a few years ago). Other computer magazines' discs have demos, free software and drivers but I've also seen them provide movies (I have no idea why). Luckily the notorious AOL discs have vanished ;-) A noteworthy example of a really useful bonus disc is from the popular computer magazine c't: about once a year it provides Knoppicilin, now called Desinfec't which is a Linux Live-CD with content to fix your Windows system: it comes with a few virus scanners (latest version: the commercial scanners Avira, BitDefender, Kaspersky and the free ClamAV) and always support reading and writing NTFS partitions.
Gaming magazines also put these discs to good use as some of them put video reviews of games on their discs and that really is useful additional content as often two or three screenshots printed in a magazine just can't transport the experience of a game. Of course the PC targeted magazines also have game demos.
It actually meant that no child got ahead.
Yes, but nowhere near as much as that. To pick a random example, "Digital SLR Photography" has a cover price of £4, whereas a subscription gives you 12 issues for £43.
OTOH, GP was perhaps exaggerating in saying price was on par with a paperback book, as these seem to typically be about £7. Yes, I am aware that they're cheaper in the US -- publishing is one of the few markets where there seems to be a real price disparity between the two countries. Importers typically charge £1 per dollar cover price of US editions, which probably leaves quite a bit of space for profit, especially as they're almost certainly getting >50% discount from the publishers. I suspect the reason for the difference is economy of scale -- the UK is a market only about a fifth the size of the US, and the cost of printing stuff like this is almost entirely in the per-issue set-up costs.
"'Used to be' is a past tense."
Yes. Here are some trends.
List of Economies by Incremental Nominal GDP from 1990 to 2000
United States 41.37%
Japan 16.04%
European Union 14.48%
China 8.05%
List of Economies by Incremental Nominal GDP from 2000 to 2010
European Union 25.24%
China 15.25%
United States 14.91%
Brazil 4.72%
Predictive List of Economies by Incremental Nominal GDP from 2010 to 2016
China 20.59%
European Union 16.77%
United States 12.99%
Russia 5.61%
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy
I guess there is some relation to the viability of printed magazines in all this.
You should see the magazines from Japan (especially the car magazines).
I agree. You just can't get decent vehicular tentacle rape magazines outside of Japan.
... and then they built the supercollider.
It can be a bit cheaper if you subscribe but not much. Simple fact is unlike with the US the subscription model for magazines never really took off in the UK no matter how hard they tried. UK consumer did not like making the commitment when they could walk down the street and buy the magazine when it suited them
Which could explain the difference in quality in the magazines between counties, in many ways magazines in the US are trying compete at a brand subscription level (it's where the bulk of their sales are done) , aka give you good enough "deal" to to entice you to subscribe and then do just enough to make sure you are not motivated enough to cancel the subscription (considerably easier that trying to motivate you to actively renew, hence why they all automatically renew) where as magazines in the UK have not only compete with their competitors mag right next to theirs every day but also convince the consumer it's worth buying....with every single issue
Couple of bad issues (uninteresting cover/main articles) would cause barely a blip on US magazines revenues as majority of their customers are subscriptions where as for UK mag it could mean closure
yes, but the important point here is that those Euro-socialist school systems have produced societies where people can read. Thus there is a market for products that involve reading.