Hi Tom.
this is an interesting question. I do perfectly agree with your reasoning,
about the legitimacy of the magazine and exposure, and indeed if you look at
the way web magazines like Spag are still very popular today with their own
websites, news letters, facebook groups etc it does seem a lot could be done
with getting the word out to people, on the other hand we are in a slightly
different era now where social media and distribution is concerned.
For example, in the past it'd be necessary to go to a website and check the
news manually, or subscribe to a mailing list. Now however with rss feeds,
twitter and facebook people can be continually updated. I know for instance
on audiogames.net there are not a few people who aren't on the forum or
visit the site but do! get our news from facebook, twitter or the rss
because any news posted gets transmitted over there, (thank Sander and
Richard for the clever setup there).
I admit, I am not a social media fan myself and do! prefer checking sites
the old fashioned way, but that is a purely personal thing and doesn't hold
for a lot of other people.
Thus, before you even start thinking on a magazine basis bare in mind people
can access what is written on a site in very different ways now from the
traditional E-mail monthly distribution, and can for instance more quickly
read smaller news items, this is one reason the other news posters and I try
to keep the audiogames.net news as uptodate as we can, for all of those who
aren't! on site but might still want to know what's going on currently.
That being said,obviously there are some advantages to a magazine that you
couldn't get with a simple news feed like audiogames.net has. One of them is
longer articles, retrospectives, detailed reviews, walkthroughs, stratogy
guides, phils' joke columns etc. It was for the purpose of giving people a
chance to write these and other people a chance to read them in absense of
the audeasy magazine that I in fact created the articles room over on
audiogames.net, (and anyone who wants to write such an article would be very
welcome to do so over there).
It is however equally true that a magazine is by it's very nature a longer
read, and thus provides a different and more complete experience than just a
brief news post or even a single article. Even though I only caught the tale
end of audeasy, issues 50-54 I think, I did myself appreciate the round up,
the listing of current information, seeing in one place everything that was
going on plus some extras. You could! theoretically achieve this with a news
feed if you say had a monthly round up column the way I've seen some blogs
do, but certainly I've never been myself inclined to write such a column for
audiogames.net, as I couldn't guarantee to do it each month or to remember
all the news from everywhere, where as obviously having a magazine as a
mostly collective project of all the news it's not necessary for one person
to do all the work of individually writing the news items themselves, just
for one person to put it all together.
Then of course, as you said, a magazine could potentially be distributed off
the internet as braille or large print copies to organizations for the
blind, it was after all a very brief note in an otherwise silly braille
magazine that first told me about the whitestick.co.uk site and indeed got
me into playing games on a pc in the first place. Then again, what such
distribution would cost, and whethr organizations for the blind would even
be interested, (I can almost guess the response from the Rnib), is another
matter.
So, do we need a magazine? does it do that much more than a blog or news
feed would do? is it worth someone taking time to edit, put together and
create a website?
In fairness I actually don't know, there are arguements on both sides
really. Though certainly I'll keep on going with audiogames.net news
whatever happens and if there is! a new magazine I'll be glad to mention
when issues appear on there as well, though if not, well as I said, any
longer articles people might want to write are very welcome on the articles
room of the forum, and I'll reporte in the news when such articles are
posted.
All the best,
Dark.
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