Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
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Time for your weekly dose of outstanding oddities and online obscurity
presented in the battle against binary boredom.
Are you plagued by excessive optimism, feel that you're overly enthusiastic
and simply enjoying life too much? Well
despair.com has got
the products you need to put some balance back in your life!
Regular readers know that I don't hold most awards in high regard -- however,
the
ig® Nobel Prize awards
are something altogether different and well
deserving of Aardvark's endorsement.
Check Out The Aardvark PC-Based Digital
Entertainment Centre Project
If you've got a problem then it's almost guaranteed that there's some kind of
support group or community online where you can gain strength through sharing
your experiences and worries. Even the
owners of obese houseflies
are not alone in cyberspace.
And finally, from the "boy do you need a real life" department we have a working
harpsichord built
entirely from Lego. Oh yea -- everyone needs a hobby eh?
Magazines versus The Net
When I think back to about 15 years ago, I was spending about $30 per week on
magazines and those were 1987 dollars -- worth a bit more than today's
2002 dollars.
I was a regular subscriber to Byte, Dr Dobbs Journal, APC, Bits and Bytes
plus a number of other computer-related and non-computer-related titles.
In the past 12 months I think I've probably bought no more than two or
three magazine issues in total.
I do read NetGuide
every month but fortunately, I don't have to actually buy it. Likewise,
I used to get a complimentary subscription to
PC World -- but they don't
seem to love me anymore so that's off my reading list. The funny thing
is that because I don't get a pulp edition of PC World, I find that I
seldom visit their website (I forget it even exists without the monthly
printed reminder I guess)
The reason I no longer need to spend large amounts of money on magazines is
obvious -- virtually all the information, enlightenment and topical opinion
that used to come stained into the flattened corpses of dead trees is now
delivered via modem.
I'd like to know how many other Aardvark readers have slashed their magazine
purchasing since (say) 1995 when the Net really started to make an impact?
Obviously some magazine publishers such as Ziff Davis have been hurt by the
numbers of readers who have switched from pulp to electrons -- but what of
the future?
The demise of Arts & Letters
Daily this week is just another datapoint indicating the fact
that online publishing remains a difficult area in which to spin a profit.
Aardvark's own brush with death earlier this year (have you visited
the sponsor today? :-)
further evidence of the problem facing publishers.
Whether online publications can actually turn a profit is not
what I want to discuss today (the NZ Herald claims that it's online operation
is already profitable) -- but rather, the issue of whether this trend away from
print will eventually restrict our choice of reading material.
How have your magazine buying/reading patterns changed? Are you spending
less on ink-stained pulp?
If you want to have your say on the contents
of today's column then please do so.
Only comments marked "For Publication" will (if I have time) be published in the
readers' comments section.
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