Well I’ve been noticing nowadays, especially with the rise of the internet and most importantly RSS feeds that the importance, or at least the ultimate usefulness of magazine has somewhat declined. For example, take you average few Mac magazines, they generally just tell you about a few new Apple products released last month, have a few interesting tutorials, most of which you could find on the internet, have a few opinions from the editors etc. and a lot of adverts…
Now, thinking about it really, there is really no need to read these kind of magazines. If you want news, you can get it immediately with RSS feeds etc. and with the amount that I subscribe to, I probably get just as much info on current Mac affairs as the Macworld News team! If you’re in need for tutorials, then you could quite easily find them in the realms of the internet too, and you wouldn’t have to rely on what the editor of the magazine wanted you to find out this week, you could look for what you want. Almost like a tailormade holiday, apart from without the going away bit! The opinions you could also find on the internet, quite easily on the Magazine’s website where they have a Blog/RSS feed of the various editors so will always find out what is going to be in the magazine, or shall I say the print edition ages before it really happens! And adverts, you can quite easily find them where ever you wish.
So in essence the need for the magazine is dying (or is it dieing?) out… Or is it! Bear in mind that there are different types of magazines and not all contain stuff that is on the internet in one form or another. Also note that not everyone has the internet and quite possibly the amount of time required to peruse through all of the RSS feeds etc, but, if we are talking about computer magazines, the majority of the people reading those kind of magazines in this country and in this day and age, are most likely to have access to the internet… And for people with not much time, money is time as they say so they may prefer buying a magazine and reading whenever they wish as opposed to looking on the internet intermittently for info.
At the end of the day though, does it really matter, its whatever floats your boat and what is easiest for you is probably best. Newspapers though, are a different matter for some odd reason. I might explain that later, and besides the Guardian is a great paper…