Bye Bye InfoWorld

Thu 4/05/2007 1:13 pm. Yes another pitiful computer mag down the tubes. ... I remember it mostly from the old days, when it was a sort-of real magazine and could be relied-on to get numeric details of computer topics wrong, and then correct them in subsequent issues, getting them wrong again. ... But those halcyon days are long gone; recently I’ve been getting it because of my exalted position in the software biz — well, actually, that’s the only way anybody got it — and they avoid those numeric problems by never ever discussing anything like that, instead concentrating on the wretched IT toilers.

... So the “letter from the editor” or whatever it’s called explained that in the bad old days magazines disappeared in a puff of nothing but now it’s all in the open, emblazoning the cover “Final Print Issue”, announcing their demise — oops, make that “conversion to online publishing”. ... Translation: because everybody uses the web it wouldn’t be possible to keep subscribers in the dark, particularly the presumably-techie InfoWorld readers — and so they make a virtue of necessity. ... And who knows, their “online presence” might go somewhere ... cough cough. ... But isn’t it like the elves in Lord of the Rings, always sailing off to the misty West as their world collapses? The magazines sailing off to their invisible online presence?

... Somewhere in the issue there’s a box, an afterthought, about the mysterious role advertising played in the online conversion — and of course that’s entirely what it’s about, even ’though the rest of the magazine blithers on about their readers and their writers and how much better the electronic web is to printed blah blah....

... No, the simple story is that advertisers get better results advertising their techie stuff on the web than in the magazine — of course! ... That’s it; there is no other excuse. ... And the idea that somehow the loyal readership will trundle over to InfoWorld.com to continue our glorious adventure — it’s just pitiful treacle. ... Advertisers will use whatever works, and it’s more likely to be the “lonely girls” phalanx at YouTube...

... Ah well, it is like the Woody Allen joke, “the food is so awful — and the portions are so small”. ... I am a Child of Hamelin, willing to follow any plausible piper — but so bitter I’ve been misled! ... Why do they lie!? ... And why don’t they tell me more stories!?