What happened to the magazines?
 

Local bookstores don't carry magazines like Powerboat anymore. About the only thing left are yacht and sailboat magazines. Powerboats, especially sporting boats, are toast. Did they all go out of business?

The internet kills.....

One day (at the Gray Panthers meeting) people will also say....Hey, Remember Post Offices?

Progress man! Advertisement makes or breaks magazines. Economy took a dump coupled with the enormous growth of Internet at the same time coupled with the crazy low advertising costs online compared to paper and it was the perfect storm to kill print.

Pick up any magazine - they're all a fraction the size they used to be. Hell, have you seen a phone book lately?! Looks like a paperback novel.

the contributing writers got caught up in politics and quit doing honest reviews of equipment as they should have .
They paid a price im sure . Shame I liked some of them .

I was goofing off once when powerboat magazine was all over tearing down internet boat sites like this one in particular .
and they were trying to get readers to agree with them . And being the Smartass I am obliged and wrote in something I forget now . but is was like ,internet boaters are nerds or far worse probably .
Any way they printed it! . They hated this forum Now they are gone . Well most of them lol

Lol. Wow, you couldn't be further from correct and actually contradict yourself in your own post. If writers got caught up in politics on reporting on boats to please the advertisers, then why would that cause the mags to "pay the price"? If they were pandering to advertisers, why would they stop advertising? Clueless much?

And I believe you're referring to the time Bret Becker referred to those keyboard boaters as "nitwits" which was a take on the old saying "everyone's an expert online". Don't think anyone was trying to tear down OSO. And remember, back then there was no journalism and there was RARELY someone from the industry that posted on here. It was basically a bunch of boaters on here talking sh!t. Oh, and guess who contributes the journalism on OSO now? Those from Powerboat.

But hey, you're more than welcome to your opinion, even if it's completely wrong.

Exactly my point ! Thank you .

This couldn't possibly be less accurate, at least if you're talking about Powerboat, a magazine I was proud to contribute to for 15 years. Opinions are fine, but opinions without foundation are easily dismissed. Here are the facts

1. Periodical circulation had been declining steadily, not in all titles but across the board, for more than 20 years before "Internet" was a household word. Print costs, from paper to distribution, have been steadily rising for more than 20 years and sub rates and newsstand sales in all but a few titles never came close to covering those costs.
2. For most of its lifetime, Powerboat was supported by a generous and wealthy family and profitability, while always sought after, was not required.
3. Shortly after Powerboat was sold to a corporate publisher, which did place value on profitability (as it should have), the entire industry went into a recession that took key Powerboat magazine advertisers such as Baja, Fountain and Donzi with it.
4. Shortly after that same sale, Powerboat was involved in litigation over a helicopter accident that claimed two lives, one a dear friend I traveled with on assignment for year.

Items No. 3 and No. 4 killed Powerboat—not the Internet, not writers selling out. (Funny, I don't remember seeing you in any of the editorial meetings.) That's the truth as supported by the facts. The rest is pure speculation on your part.

Five-and-a-half years ago I started speedonthewater.com, which has a digital magazine that gets 5,000-plus downloads an issue—not print, but quite good for the D-pub realm. I( helped start boats.com in 1999-2000, so moving from print to digital wasn't a big leap.) Jason Johnson, another former Powerboat guy, joined me a few years ago at speedonthewater.com, and we do have a print magazine as a potential future project, but I digress.

It is one thing to have an opinion, and message boards such as this one give everyone voice. That's a good, no, make that great, thing. But in this case, your opinion on "what happened to magazines" is baseless.

The fight over control of information delivery is control of information
and it has a long history that goes straight to the money regardless of timeline.

Energy to deliver truckloads of pulp was always a major piece of overhead from the time of horseshoes,
even after the capital equipment costs had long been paid for-- costs initiated and made possible in the industrial revolution.
Such exhorbitant numbers that made acquisition of presses possible to a very privileged few...
those with power are historically kinda reluctant to give it up.

These last 30 years have been rather cosmic...
digital advances and desktop publishing first freed and then devoured the commercial publishing industry.

I've watched it happen and it feels invigorating. As as creative director in the 70's, art director and production manager for natl trade mags in the 80's, photoshop mgr for newspaper group in the 90's...
I saw industries like typesetting and commercial color labs flame out practically overnight as Apple grew some roots and took off along with digital of all kinds.

Matt is speaking the truth- sadly, forces beyond their control just pushed things along faster to an inevitable conclusion.

Viva la revolution.

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this is how things ended up . mags are gone .
sorry to hurt any feelings .I m sure youre matt is a great guy . I like youre stuff ON THE INTERNET .:cool-smiley-011: