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MacWHY DO THESE THINGS
HAPPEN? "...sources close to the situation tell us that all of MacWeek's staff is effectively being let go." [my emphasis] Bryan is much too nice a fellow to use words like "screwed," "kicked out," "canned," "tossed out on the street," or just plain "fired," but you get the idea. I figure "effectively" means that some of the old staffers will be tossed an editorial crumb once in a while at whatever passes for freelancers' rates in the lucrative world of five percent marketshare. Yes, I have an informed idea of how much that might be, and no, I'm not going to tell you. I know you don't want to see a grown man cry. Bryan thinks Mac Publishing's idea is to concentrate the hits on fewer Web sites and thus increase the attraction for advertisers at the ones that remain (you know, shoot one pig so the others have more to eat). That makes sense of sorts, considering the limited spectrum of what's acceptable in the Wonderful World of Business. Mac Publishing LLC is owned by Ziff Davis, a much larger outfit. Whether this has anything to do with the decision to axe one of the oldest and most respected Mac institutions ever is anybody's guess, but it might be helpful to keep in mind that precious litle loyalty is involved here. Just take a gander at the magazines published wholly by Ziff Davis Media, Inc.: PC Magazine, SMART BUSINESS, and Yahoo! Internet Life. Then see this list, which shows those published by Ziff Davis in a joint venture with International Data Group, or IDG (hey, you know who they are, don't you?): eWEEK Just to pound in my point a little deeper, please note that Imagine Media, Inc., publishers of the ever-slimmer MacAddict and its half-starved dot.com equivalent, also puts out the following: Maximum PC If you don't see a pattern here, it's not my fault. We in the Macintosh community tend to see things through rose-colored glasses, though. Even Bryan Chaffin calls Imagine Media a "Mac publishing house." . .(Shame on you! :-) I don't know what happened to MacWEEK, or what's going to happen to MacCentral and Macworld, except that something will! When the beancounters start jettisoning cargo, it usually means a long, slow death spiral is underway. And for those of you into reading between the lines, there's this: for some time now MacCentral has been sending me a rather odd email concoction (unrequested, by the way) called "The MacCentral Minute." You have to agree that there's huge potential for riotous irony and sarcasm here, but have I ever exploited it? NO! However, the fact that someone thinks it's smart to demonstrate on a daily basis how the essence of a major Web site can be boiled down to one lousy minute tells me something they don't really want to say. (There, I did it! I'm not proud, I just couldn't wait any longer.) MacWELL, MacWHY DON'T YOU
HELP? "Why do you ALWAYS link to Gene's articles, and neglect the VAST majority of others? Sure, Gene [Steinberg] writes very well, but so does most of our writers, whom you ignore unless [xxx] name is [xxxx]. Why is that? Personally, I don't care if you do or don't. We get linked all over the place anyway (I track stats) but you are always commenting on Gene's stuff to the exclusion of many others. Dan Knight over at LowEndMac.com is great. How about linking that more often? What about Jack's stuff over at As The Apple Turns? I mean, come on! Give me a break, man." Er, well, I um. . .now WAIT a minute! I do too mention those other guys. Applelinks is "the ultimate Macintosh resource," after all. But we're not running an index site here. MacSurfer's working that side of the street. "My point it, all you seem to do is give the rub to your buddies. I am tired of it myself. If your so stuck on Gene's stuff, great, but at least take a look at what else is out there. You may be surprised. I know you have a HUGE disdain for most other Mac writers, thinking them sub-par writers. Your correct in some cases. But gosh, John, look around a little more. There is some really good stuff out there. And I would think appleLINKS would be more interested in talking about those sites as well." Where to start? (Maybe by hoping someone thanks me for not liberally wielding a certain three-letter Latin word. :-) Geez, all I do most days is take a look around the Web, see what's floated to the top, and run with it. Steinberg's daily blurbs sometimes catch my eye, and he's a grownup. When I log on in the morning, I have to read fast, write faster, upload NOW, and move on. This is the INTERNET! There really isn't any reason (or time!) to "look around a little more" unless I'm researching an article or writing a book. And then there's the economic angle, which takes us back to the first half of this column. One might well ask, why link to other Mac sites at all? Oooohhh, harsh stuff! But why send you off-site? We don't use the <target> trick to throw up extra windows like some do. (Come to think of it, why don't we? Maybe I should ask.) The thing is, we do feel we're part of a community, so of course we mention other Mac sites. But I'll give you a buck for every article or column of mine you can find linked in the last three years worth of archives at MacCentral or MacWEEK! They basically link only to non-competitive sources or to each other, and note that not even this was enough to save MacWEEK. Before uploading this column, I skimmed MacCentral's front page: the only obvious Mac site links were to Macworld.com. Other than that, there were off-site links to Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and ZDNet News. None of the internal links (articles) had anything to do with any other Mac sites and most referred to press releases or product announcements. (Duh!) MacWHAT DO WE DO NOW?! As for the orginal subject of this week's episode, I don't know why their corportate masters killed MacWEEK. Visionaries can cut back and regroup around a new center, of course. I invite you to take another look at the publications listed in the first half of this column, ponder a bit, and see if you think any such animal has keys to the executive powder room. This does not mean that anything is "wrong," of course. It just means that you shouldn't depend on cheerleaders and false advocacy to make you happy with your Mac. You ought to be using your computer to enhance your life, anyway, not the other way around. Do something cool, feel better, and it'll show. And as far as print publications go, the only magazines I subscribe to are Car & Driver, Utne Reader, New Mexico Magazine, and Organic Gardening (sometimes I buy a Sunday New York Times). Not a computer rag in the bunch! For what it's worth, Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr always thought MacWEEK had more going for it than its online siblings, but that's water under the bridge now. He also wants everyone to visit the Zoozone to check out his FotoFeed daily New Mexico image feature and read the relocated Farr Site columns they might have missed. The latest brand new one, "Where I Am Now," is a real doozy. Get 'em while they're still free. Audio Credit: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms.
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