Skip to main content

The Death of Magazines

I received a letter from Portfolio magazine, announcing that they were ceasing publication. I'm only mildly surprised and mildly disappointed. Surprised only because it joins a list of magazines that I had paid subscriptions to, which folded, or turned into ezines. Red Herring was a favorite of mine, but it disappeared years ago. I became a convert to Business 2.0. It didn't really get my attention at first, but over time I began to look forward to it. It closed a couple of years ago; I still don't think Time Warner gave it a fair chance.

More recently, PC Magazine converted to a net-only product. In all three cases, it was obvious that advertising was down as once-fat magazines full of ads became as thin as a supermodel, but not as rich. I occasionally go to PC Mag online, but for me it just isn't the same.

And I'm only mildly disappointed in that I had paid for issues I'll never receive. I'd already decided not to renew my subscription. In an attempt to stand out from Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, etc. the editorial tone was a little snarky. The columnists took a bit of a left-wing position (certainly different than one expects for a business-oriented publication). I don't recall one good investment idea, or business concept that I thought I could apply.

Further, it was too caught up in scandals, with feature articles on the mysterious disappearance of an executive with a Dillards Department Store supplier, and the fight among the heirs to the estate of the founder of an ice cream company.

So, no great laments for Portfolio. I've noticed my Fortune and Wired becoming quite thin. I hope that they are not next...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stimulus Plan

Mr. President: The House stimulus bill is awful. Dangerous. Counter-productive. It has a very high probability of making things worse!. Your man Rahm Emanuel is supposed to be a tough guy: turn him loose on the House Dems - they are selling you down the river. Some simple tests: the spending will improve long-term productivity; the spending will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and the spending will happen fast; very, very fast. There may need to be some legislation to enable spending without years of environmental review. For example, spending on wind farms would improve long-run productivity and reduce dependence on foreign oil. But let's say the wind farm is a couple of miles offshore. You can't have environmental groups stopping the development to see if some fish will be harmed. This spending has to happen now. And, no tax cuts with the possible exception of AMT. People aren't going to spend any tax savings; they are going to pay their credit card bills or r...
10 comments
Read more

The Reasons We Think America is On the Wrong Course

I was listening to the Michael Medved show yesterday. He does a nice job at talk radio. But he was worked up because the CBS News Poll showed that 72% of Americans surveyed think the U.S. is on the wrong track. (When I went to CBS' site, it looks to me like the number is 69%, but that's an insignicant difference). Medved's view is that income for the poorest citizens are rising (recent government data), unemployment is low, stock market is high, no cold war, so why so pessimistic? Here are my answers: Several of our young men and women are being killed every day in a war that we are getting sick of. The deficit is some unimaginable, staggering number that my generation is imposing on my children. Social Security is bankrupt and both Congress and the Administration (both previous and current, and both Republican and Democratic) are unwilling to face the issue. There are virulent infectious agents in hospitals that are resistent to essentially all antibiotics, and the drug co...
2 comments
Read more

Book Review: What Matters Now by Gary Hamel

Interview of Eric Schmidt by Gary Hamel at the MLab dinner tonight. Google's Marissa Mayer and Hal Varian also joined the open dialog about Google's culture and management style, from chaos to arrogance. The video just went up on YouTube. It's quite entertaining. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Cover of The Future of Management My list of must-read business writers continues to expand.   Gary Hamel , however, author of What Matters Now , with the very long subtitle of How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation , has been on the list for quite some time.   Continuing his thesis on the need for a new approach to management introduced in his prior book The Future of Management , Hamel calls for a complete rethinking of how enterprises are run. Fundamental to his recommendation is that the practice of management is ossified in a command and control system that is now generations old and needs to be replaced with somethi...
1 comment
Read more