PC Magazine goes all digital November 21, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Tech tips.trackback
Ziff Davis Media’s PC Magazine is the latest monthly magazine to quit printing and become a purely digital operation. The January issue will be its last print edition.
I am uncluttering my office at the moment and, in my effort to get rid of the piles of paper on my desk, have written a bunch of draft posts on blurbs and articles I have torn from magazines like PC World and PC Magazine over the years. I will be posting them here over the next few weeks. As I was going through the articles today I ruminated on my decision to cancel my subscriptions to PC World and PC Magazine, only to discover this news item in my feed reader. I had canceled my subscriptions, because I found that I simply didn’t feel reading the magazine was a priority and would let them stack up until I had a free afternoon to go through them. I figured I could read them in the library or catch up online. Obviously many people felt like me and now rely on the web sites for their helpful articles.
Moving to an all-digital format seems like a natural and inevitable progression. I look forward to visiting their website now instead.
Musings from an overworked translator 
I am a little sad about this. While I am just a casual reader and the days where I couldn’t wait to get my new PC mag are over, I still enjoyed them on the coffee table. Just something to do during advertisement on TV. Plus, they are really dirt cheap in subscription, under $20 for the year or so. The only thing that bothered me was that every third issue had the big “Awesome Windows Tips and Trick” title and all they had was some lame things that no one needs or some old tweaks. Their hardware reviews were usually so limited, just testing 5 different LCD monitors isn’t a great sample. And sometimes, they were simply wrong. I remember in some issue a reader asked if it is possible to get your video content of your DVR hard drive (it was Comcast’s Motorola) and they flat-out said no. Well, I do it all the time, so I know it IS possible (and easy to boot).
I always felt German PC mags were geekier and less mainstream, testing more early adopter hardware and their tests usually included a lot more products or models. Their tips and tricks were actually worth mentioning.
Ha, maybe it isn’t such a shame after all, that they fold. I still have my favorite US PC mag, Maximum PC.