Lots of interesting discussion here. I think I confused some people by what
I said earlier, so I'd best clarify a bit.
I don't know what anyone else is thinking, but I am mostly NOT thinking of a
commercial magazine format. That's why I didn't call what I was talking
about a "magazine." Magazines are in "issues", which are based on the
realities of paper publishing. Websites that are database-driven can have a
virtually infinite number of articles in a single "issue." A couple of
responses in this thread have already alluded to this characteristic of
websites. It is also possible, without a whole lot of effort, to set them
up so they are constantly changing. So, you don't have to have a constant
stream of new articles to keep it going. Once you have the foundational
repository of articles, a trickle will work.
Online magazines are very hard to produce, not because it is difficult to
build them, but because it is very difficult to manage the issue-based
content.
As for articles, I don't know about NEW content, but the thing I was
thinking about was mainly a repository of OLD content, with enough new stuff
coming in that people want to come back and check regularly. Yes, it is
easy to build a website, but it is hard to build one that will sustain
itself with efforts from a volunteer community. If you can get permission
from copyright owners of the hundreds of existing articles, you can have a
solid foundation of interesting articles that will draw people all by
itself.
Magazines that are still in operation won't want to release back issues, for
obvious reasons. But the ventures that have not been financially successful
probably represent the greatest collection of wisdom on the subject, and
they failed for other reasons.
There've been lots of answers pro and con on the basic question (do we need
a website), and it is now clear that there are several active websites out
there. If someone wants to make a go of making a commercial magazine
online, my hat is off to them, but I think it is not a viable ROI scenario.
The question to me is whether something else is needed, as a free and open
site to anyone.
IF, however, there is (a) interest in seeing a site based on s scale trains
which has a searchable repository of articles, and there are (b) enough old
articles floating around for which people wouldn't mind granting online
publishing rights (without compensation,) then I would be willing to build
the site, database, and content management for it, host it, and register the
domain for it. I'm a domain registrar as well as a database and eCommerce
programmer, and I lease a couple of servers for this kind of thing, which I
use for my business.
This is not something that would make money, nor is it something that would
TRY to make money. The only thing that would be for sale is (a) inexpensive
classifieds, and (b) commercial advertising. Everything else, including
access to all articles and downloads, would be free. The revenue generated
from the advertising would probably cover my hosting costs for it and a
small part of the server lease, and that's probably about all.
As to what I would get out of it, (a) I love trains, and anything I do I
like to do RIGHT, i.e., scale, (b) the discussions on here made me realize
that a lot of old but very valuable material was probably being lost over
time, and I'd like to see it preserved, and (c) I like the idea of being
able to contribute something valuable from my outside experience. Beyond
that, if I can use a fully blown website of the type I was talking about
earlier as a demonstration model for my (patent applied for) content
management system, that will end up helping my business, which is building
full-sized commercial and government sites.
What I would NOT be willing to do, is (a) create a site without a
substantial number of articles ready to include (~40+), (b) write all the
material myself (not qualified,) or (c) manage the ongoing content editing
over time. Just as there are list moderators in this group, there would
need to be people who are qualified to approve articles and editing by
people who are unknown, and move people from unknown to member to assistant
editor to editor status. I'll build it; I won't run it. I think you CAN
easily manage this aspect of it, though.
This site would also NOT replace this group. There is a use for a Yahoo
group that a website cannot match, even with excellent blogging. No need to
reinvent that wheel. OTOH, there are many aspects of a website that a Yahoo
group cannot touch. How do you find a great post on a subject that was made
eight years ago? How do you separate it from the 1500 follow-up posts on
the same thread? A DB-driven website gives you the ability to categorize,
search, and locate the most pertinent information in the minimum amount of
work.
The main question is whether the group would want something like that, and
whether there is, in fact, a repository of articles that could be included.
Brian
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