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PC Magazine

Many of my favorite magazines continue to wither away - joining Look and Life in magazine heaven. I was a dedicated reader of Red Herring, loved the practical - and occasionally snarky - Business 2.0.

PC Magazine announces on the inside that the January issue is its last print version; from now on it will be an e-zine. It really isn't all that surprising. There aren't dozens of PC producers anymore fighting for our business. No more Eagle, Brick, WYSE, DEC, Tandy, Packard Bell, Swan or even IBM. And not much invention happening in software either. No competition=no advertising. I understand it even though I don't like it.

Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff wrote a "Dear Reader" letter bound into the January edition. In it he tried to convince me that the e-zine format is just as good. His first two points are: "It arrives in youre-mail automatically." and " It is portable". Well, Lance, the magazine arrived in my mail box automatically, and is more portable than my laptop. And, when I'm sitting in the airport, I don't have to wait for it to boot up. I can mark a page and pick it back up at any time - minutes or weeks later. I can shift to any postion I want to get comfortable when I read it, and I don't have to worry about battery time. You failed to convince me - but I don't have any choice if I want to continue to get the info, do I?
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Anonymous said…
Gene, Just think about the trees!
10:23 AM
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