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After 47 Years, Computerworld Ceases Print Publication
harrymcc (1641347) writes "In June 1967, a weekly newspaper called Computerworld launched. Almost exactly 47 years later, it's calling it quits in print form to focus on its website and other digital editions. The move isn't the least bit surprising, but it's also the end of an era--and I can' t think of any computing publication which had a longer run. Over at Technologizer, I shared some thoughts on what Computerworld meant to the world, to its publisher, IDG, and to me."
Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery was first published in 1957.
I believe my first computer "magazine" was a photocopied zine for Apple computers from back in the 70s. I think I bought my last computer magazine in about 2000. The web killed the market for such things long ago.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
They've had magazines published on computer disks since the 1980s.
Computerworld was still in print.
Of course, so was MacWorld and the like. Anyone remember what a big deal HotWired was back in the mid nineties?
Gladly, we can kill online ads through ad blockers so the revenue stream for such a magazine doesn't support it as a sustainable "business".
Any meaningful insight comes straight from important folks' blogs, tweets and mouths at conferences. Discussion or editorials are done at places like /. , Reddit or HN. Internet successfully disintermediates yet another "market" and everyone benefits.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
so, they were just waiting for the boss to kick the bucket. nice.
I remember watching cnet on television back in the mid 1990's. When it went off the air in in favor of an all web media outlet, I thought it was the end and was actually kind of depressed. It turned out television was limiting and now cnet probably makes more money from me browsing their site then they ever did with television advertising. Likewise, I used to spend a lot of time browsing computer related magazines. I haven't so much as visited a dedicated magazine isle in maybe 15 years. Print is dying with a whimper and no one cares. Nothing to see here, not really.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
How permanent will our digital editions be when it comes to archiving them?
Really? What is this magical medium that replaces the need for magazines?
I'm a dead tree fan for most technical pubs, but I swear it's been 10 years since I've seen a paper copy of COMPUTERWORLD. I've seen the mainframe articles dwindle, the PC section vanish into mainstream articles, and a lot more, but when my paper subscription expired and they invited me to read it online, I never went back.
My postman used to hate those things. They had to be crammed into mailboxes. It was tabloid-sized and often fairly thick to boot. I think I've got the 1000th issue in a closet.
That was one that people literally bought for the advertisements. Of course, we don't need those advertisements any more, either.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
One little thing I love e-zines for is putting an end to that annoying and worthless "Continued on page 357" convention that print magazines all have. The extra leafing time it took to read one article may have been trivial, but add it up over three-fourths of a reading lifetime and it turns into a major "Why didn't they think of that years ago!"
I always like Dr. Dobb's when it was just a newsletter.
Dr. Dobb's journal of Calisthenics and Orthodontia
Running light without overbyte
What's interesting are the contents of the front page as it appears in TFA....
All and all, not so different from what one might find on a recent average day on Slashdot.
plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
I was more of a "Nuts and Volts" kind of guy. Never got into ComputerWorld but there were a ton of my classmates that was always carrying a copy back in the '80s.
Karma: Bad
Not that anyone cares, but this marks 20 years since I wrote an op-ed piece for Computerworld, titled "Ban Business Use of the Internet." It was on the eve of commercial interests being allowed onto the internet, and just after Canter & Siegel inundated Usenet with their Green Card Spam (look it up, kids). While I don't agree with every word I wrote, I think there were certain points I made which have come true. I wrote about corporate interests sponsoring university net feeds, and the speech restrictions that would come with it. Parallel that with the witchhunt of Aaron Swartz and his subsequent suicide.
I was going to scan in the entire text, since it's not available on the web anywhere (that I can find), just to see what others thought about how I was right and how I was wrong about the corporate "invasion" to academia.
I'm Peggy.
While it may not apply to everyone, I go away camping quite a bit where there is no mobile reception, and I quite enjoy that fact. It's great to get away from a screen sometimes.
Nothing better than sitting round a fire reading up on your interests...
Sure you can say "bring your tablet with the magazines loaded", but that doesn't really get you away from a screen now does it?
Just my 2c
Its no different bringing a tablet or eink reader to camp than a stack of books. You are still distracting yourself.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've seen computing magazines change from source code to PC software/hardware to PC/TV/phone hardware to a specific OS. Now it's all available online.
As essentially a paid review publication, "ComputerWorld" ceased being worth paying money for long ago.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Bird owners are now looking for alternative cage lining materials. Rumor has it copies of "O" magazine may be the best alternative to Computerworld because it's super-absorbent and has those scratch and sniff pages all the birds will like.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Excepting that time away from screens is what I'm looking for when away.
Tablet et. al. does not provide this :)
Must say that even though I work in IT I don't like the major reliance on screens for everything these days...
I'm sure the next generation won't care (so get off my lawn I guess)
Before the Internet, Computerworld was the only browsing distracton at work: '80 Mbytes of storage for under $12k!' and other ad favorites through the years
It was good while it lasted, but I think we can all agree that the modern electronic computer has had its day, and it's time to go back to the classic mechanical contrivances of earlier times.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Magazines do still exist. They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article. Not every article in our life needs to be a sound-bite or mutli-page hit-trap or digital-tracking-adware or regurgitated listicle or blog of J. Q. Random or have audio and video ads in the gutter. For the moment, the reading public does not seem to be willing to pay a subscription fee for a website so for the moment good journalism and literature magazines still sell subscriptions that include digital and print publications. Sometime soon in the future the model will change but good journalism and literature is not free nor have ads been sufficient to support them. Until we find a business model that works, we will make due with a hybrid system.
Magazines do still exist. They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article.
Umm i have not seen a magazine that didn't insert ads in their content on the pages for decades. Sure they dont popup in your face, or play a movie, but they are still there.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, to each their own.
I've never enjoyed trying to read by firelight when camping. Using lanterns is even worse; they attract the bugs. I won't read during the daylight hours; those are for hiking and photos and such.
Will
This. Particularly since many print magazines don't print the numbers on a surprising number of pages (ads, the first page or spread of an article, on infographics ...) so there isn't even an easy way to seek to the continuation.
The web has invented its version as well, though, with what would be a six-inch newspaper article spread across 3 pages. "one page view" is now a subscriber-only feature :/
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
This is a magazine about computers right? If I was the founder, I would be overjoyed that people are reading on star trek-style tablets and saving trees in process. I am sure there are publications that should not go digital only. Amish Times comes to mind. But online is a great medium for this particular one.
Good unchangeable hard-copy print publications with typically far more reliable information. Pretty damned good vs the internet for a leisurely search if you keep shit organized.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"so there isn't even an easy way to seek to the continuation."
So you're incapable of counting the sides of pages, is that what you're saying?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"Must say that even though I work in IT I don't like the major reliance on screens for everything"
As opposed to what, beaming it directly to your brain?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article"
Uh, have you seen magazines these days? You've got half a column of story/review, and the rest of the two pages ends up being advertisements.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
How little stuff has actually changed.
The image of the very first Computerworld, the first page has a story about a patent lawsuit.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
... that "digital magazine" mention is the really scary part. That's wasted effort with a 98% chance they'll get it wrong.
Obligatory xckd: http://xkcd.com/1174/
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
I never stopped buying magazines like Dr. Dobbs, and still would today. But they disappeared! Did magazines disappear because people stopped reading them, or did people stop reading them because they disappeared? There are basically no software development magazines left, and certainly zero on the magazine rack at the bookstore.
When I think of "great magazines about computers" Computerworld hasn't been on that list in years. They were always the one you read after PC Mag, after PC World even, you know, if there was nothing else. Then there was Computerworld. I always suspected most people only ever read it when they got copies free at tradeshows.
Anyway, there are still great computer magazines, in my opinion. Maximum PC is currently the top of the current class, maybe whatever PC Mag is doing as a second place.
Unimpressed with the current version of CPU. PC World hasn't been relevant in a decade, reduced to lists of top-ten rankings of products already out of date before publication. Most of the others are either very specialized like Photoshop magazine or they've turned into web portals.
Sig for hire.
"Why PC's Crash, and Mainframes Don't" (April 98) is still somewhat relevant today. I wish the archives were online.
Best Slashdot Co
I tend to read things while I'm on the toilet. Since I don't want to bring a tablet into the bathroom with me to read it in web form and risk dropping the tablet into the toilet, Computer World will not be on my reading list anymore.
"They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article"
Uh, have you seen magazines these days? You've got half a column of story/review, and the rest of the two pages ends up being advertisements.
I have. They're not all like that.
Magazines do still exist. They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article.
Umm i have not seen a magazine that didn't insert ads in their content on the pages for decades. Sure they dont popup in your face, or play a movie, but they are still there.
You need to look at more magazines.
Consumer Reports has no ads.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
you could spot the wannabes because they read "computer world"