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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.
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.
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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.
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.
Sometimes it was the advertising that we craved.
Computer Shopper was something we used to eagerly await the arrival of.
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.
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.