PC Magazine goes online

Since February, the well-known computer magazine PC Magazine completely stops publishing on paper . Only the online edition will remain.

Founded in 1982, PC Magazine was one of the most successful IT publications in the world. One indicator of its success is the amount of advertising. So, sometimes it was so huge that the American edition came out on 500 and even 600 pages. However, the glory days are behind us, although now the PCMag brand has arrived and generates revenues of several tens of millions of dollars , given the localized versions that have sprouted all over the world, including the Russian PC Magazine / RE (by the way, this magazine, published since 1991, will continue to exist: for an exclusive commentary by Oleg Lebedev, editor-in-chief, see under habrakat).

Now almost the entire potential audience of the magazine receives information from the Internet. Even the magazine itself already receives about 70% of its profit from a network of subsidiary sites . The continuation of the print business is clearly unpromising.

Farewell release of American PC Magazine will be published in January. Almost all 140 employees, however, will retain their jobs and work on the online version of PCMag.com .

Here is what the editors of Habrahabr said Oleg Lebedev, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine / RE (comment was taken by Tylerskald ):

“The plans for the“ exit ”to the Network have been known for a long time, and are gradually being implemented. So, the year before last, the volume of the printed version was reduced, and in the past PC Magazine switched from 24 numbers to 12. At the same time, the magazine dramatically increased its online activity. The number of reviews has increased significantly, as has the activity in promotion. In addition, the American PC Magazine in recent years has significantly reoriented itself to the consumer market, and there the print is not really needed: why print a cell phone review on paper if a new model comes out on sale?

As for the Russian edition of PC Magazine / RE, there are no plans to end the print version. Firstly, this is not necessary, since the magazine has its own stable audience and subscribers, a decent percentage of which is written by PC Magazine / RE for at least five years. And there are those who have already signed ten, but these, of course, are the champions.

Secondly, Russia is not the United States, paper is still in demand, especially when it comes to regions. One can still say that there still reigns a subscription with payment at Sberbank.

And thirdly, we have a slightly different nature of the materials, in particular, we have more articles for the SMB segment: system administrators, IT personnel, developers, IT department heads, who decide to purchase equipment, etc. These materials, by definition, have a longer life cycle, this is knowledge and competence. And knowledge is always valuable, and especially today. ”