Right Im gonna get straight to the point. Dont you guys think theres a big gap in the market for a moddin magazine? I know when I browse the computer mags in WH smiths I get realy cheesed of with the lack of content. Ok weve got CGI, Computer Arts, Create Online some great gaming mags etc but no moddin mags. Looking at the popularity of this site and how active these forums are I think theres definatly a market for it. As moddin seems to be getting more and more popular, I think someone should fill this gap, and lets face it who better to do it than Bit. Keep up the good work guys. Pete
Coolcasemods were contacted some time back about doing a modding mag, Ask Pheonix or Bill sometime, dunno if they are going ahead with it
i know this sounds selfish but i prefer the web (cause its free). and the forums are much better. though letter to the ed can de damned funny. if the zine was good then maybe, but itd have to be better than online
yeah! I understand what yer sayin jaz, but i often find myself in places like gf's mothers etc where I have no access to the web, only things like Emerdale, corraz and ER. A BT mag would be my saviour in this hour of need! Pete.
It would need money behind it. The prob with the web as far as I can see is that advertising revenues don't bring in much cash and there really isn't that much content. This is really the prob people will pay for a mag, leading to more content, but they won't pay for a site. A mag with loads of different mods, be it designing a system from stratch, cooling, improving looks of a case, reviews, mods not relating to the computer, but peripherals... then just pages of mods to random tech items. People would pay for the mag (probably upto a fiver) and the content would be a lot better IMHO.
i think bit should go for it. find someway to make mags. have an order line and an online ordering page to sucribe for a year. .icecube
Wouldn't starting a magazing require mucho capital? I mean for the first edition to be published, and for advertising. Then you have to convince all the shops to stock it. If the magazine was better than the website, I for one would subscribe, and as JStormont said, with the extra revenue from the mag and the people advertising in it, there should be far more money for content etc. GO FOR IT!
How about a printer-friendly PDF Magazine? It's all the rage now. most versions of Adobe Photoshop can write PDF files, and PDF is a very good format for such a thing. Many people have inkjet/laser printers nowadays anway... Plus, a PDF mag would cost nothing to make..
that would defeat the point of a mag like someone above said, a mag is good for when you havnt got your computer. .icecube
Dunno about anyone else, but I prefer mags over web anyday, its having something physical in your hands that you can potter around with, read when you like, look back at without waiting. I've seen PDF documents and I don't like em at all. Fraid it has to be a nice bit of pulped tree for me. Current subscribtions are Personal Computer World T3 If I could afford it I would add Stuff What Hi-Fi and Video Autocar Top Gear MBUK PC Gamer PC Zone PC Format some Home Cinema and DVD Mags If it existed Modding mag
A printable PDF mag would not have the same appeal. I like my mags to be glossy, with high quality photos. Also they would not have the same appeal to potential advertisers, as the readership would be nowhere near as large. Most people see a magazine for the first time on the shelves at the newsagents, with a PDF magazine the reader would first have to find the website, then get acrobat reader or photoshop....
heres the thing money and ill bet that if there is a mag then we will have to pay for the forums and stuff then it wouldnt be as popular and the hit rate will go down then die out it has happened into aus lastes all of three months untill every 1 on the forums left stoped buying the mag
sounds like a genuinley good idea, the only problem is after negotiating with a printer in Britan, Europe, N-America, and austraila, and finally deciding on a decent price for a years printing of a magazine. All of us subscribers/contributors would have to pay up front for a years subscription. We would also need boxes and boxes of copies for newstands so they could sell it and make a profit. It might work if the present bit community were willing to make articles for printing au gratis. And hopefully we would have enough to sustain a year's worth of magazines so we dont defraud our customers.
I think if anyone were to try to go through with this... It seems like a good idea would be to start with something like a PDF format, so you could be sure it was possible to turn out a decent magazine within a month. Then, if that works for a couple months, try to continue toward real publishing. If this does happen I, for one, would love to be a part of it. There could be a monthly, "How To Destroy Your Computer" section
I think this is a great idea, but with having people from differant sites so the work load doesnt get to great. get 5-6 sites involved and 2-3 people from each site. Although if this was a serious understaking talking to people like zdnet might be a good step
sure future publishing would be interested in creating one, they own hundreds of mags so what one more for them to add. And plus it should be run by BiT-Tech, and mayb others. I think someone should email future and ask them what they think. I know PCF did a small review on some mods a couple of months ago and they were saying how cool and popular modding is getting. I would subscribe to it!
I'm Willing to Venture if anyone else is... I don't have enough myself, but a few enterprising coders could pull off a paper and PDF version, Subscriptions to both... Like ordering software online. Maybe not PDF, but another encrypted PDF style that you buy a software key for a year.... Yes everything is hackable, and everything is moddable, but you could still make a profit from it, even if a few "warez" decoders came about... My money's in the hat, if anyone has a head big enough to wear it...
How much would capital would it take? Its a good idea, how about a bussiness plan. what sort of turn over would we see and after howlong? Advertisments, who would want to advertise in the mag? Maybe extreme cooling.co.uk? I'm willing depending on the capital needed.
