Magazine Death Pool

Computer Shopper: RIP February 2009

Does anybody really buy a computer through magazines anymore? I thought so.

The Reaper has been keen on computer titles, as you know. This was a golden oldie waiting to be taken.

In the 1980s, Computer Shopper had the most advertisements of any magazine on the newsstands, even rivaling Vogue. Now, it's a just a mere netbook of what it used to be.

PC World is standing very lonely in this category now.

Computer Shopper could have easily weighed down my boat in its heyday. Fortunately, that is not a problem now and the Reaper can speed its way down the river.

RIP: PC Magazine 1982 - 2009

Wi-Fi may survive, but PC Magazine has not.

As recent as July 11th I wrote about this demise: "With a 35.8% ad pages loss in this year's first half, PC Magazine has emerged as a leading candidate for the Reaper's prediction of a computer magazine going under this year." My earlier predictions appeared on May 22nd and in a quite sweeping fashion back on January 17th.

PC Magazine will become a web site only proposition in January 2009, which makes total sense since tech computer and product reviews are the fastest growing, most commonly used areas of the web. Why wait weeks to find out if a Dell computer is slightly faster than one from HP, when you have to buy it now and you don't want to wait?

PC Magazine has a long illustrious history tied in with the rise (and fall) of Ziff Davis Media. At the height of its popularity in the late 90's, PC Magazine appeared bi-weekly thick and full of advertisements. It was Ziff's print cash cow. But like magazine information, the software went through its own evolution and became downloadable and instant. By 2008, there was no reason to have a print magazine devoted to upgrading your PC or evaluating new products. That world had moved entirely to the web.

While this will shake up Silicon Valley and computer nostalgia fans, PC Magazine leads a category that will shrink for the very same reasons.

As you know, the Reaper does all its blog postings on its Die-BM desktop. (sorry, I could not help myself)

Submitted For Your Approval: The whole PC computer magazine category

Media journalists are so infatuated by the up and downs glamorous magazines that they forget about the once hot category of computer magazines.

The days of ad-thick computer magazines are long gone. Several have fallen along the way, but a few die-hards are staggering around. They've shifted their focus to business and consumer electronics to stay alive (PC World) or recently announced frequency cutbacks (PC Magazine).

The Reaper believes these magazines are racing a clock which is inevitably going to run out. I'm going to have to load my boat with laptops, and you know how heavy they are. Consumers who want to fix their PC's, find the hottest software, made aware of the latest virus and scams, and best and worst shopping experiences can find it all online at... the magazine's own web sites, other web-only properties, The Consumerist and Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine blog.

The Reaper foresee the remaining PC magazines going the way of Infoworld and moving to a 100% web platform and abandoning ink on paper. Those days are gone. The web is made for geeks and tech owners.

So I'm laying down good odds right now that at least one of the remaining PC magazines (PC World, PC Magazine, and Computer Shopper) will have its motherboard fried by the end of 2008.