PC Zone shuts it's doors

[Wilip]

sad but not surprising. Did they have a website aswell?

[mycarsavw]

sad but not surprising. Did they have a website aswell?

http://tinyurl.com/2a7awlw

[Saracen]

....

Is this gonna be the trend for all magazines in the future? Unless they offer something that I cant get elsewhere, which I cant foresee, then its a dying format

Over the long term, for most, probably, yes.

And for some types of mag it'll be quicker than others.

The more commonplace and usable e-media gets, with the Kindle/iPad type device, and the ore widely that gets taken up, especially with micro-payments, the harder some types of mag are going to find it, and those finding it the hardest will be those where the content is available online, and especially where it changes, or there's lots of interaction, like forum discussions.

And those mags aimed at people that are likely to be technology early adopters will be at the head of the queue.

But, mags still have their place, certainly at the moment, not least for those that don't want to have to power up an electronic device to read a mag .... or a book. And, of course, the high quality and/or coffee table mags, perhaps like National Geographic, are likely to have a place for a very long time.

But net publishers have been putting serious pressure on tech mags, and news mags, for a long time, simply because hey are far faster to react to things happening. If a major event occurs the day after you sengt a print mag to the publishers, readers don't get to find out for a month. Online, they get to fund out minutes later. In that regard at least, it's simply no contest.

Of course, the online model has problems too. Biggest among these is that you have to be innovative to be able to make money at it. It's next to impossible for most mags to charge subscriptions for access, at least at the moment, because there's so much free stuff out there. The problem with "free" is that you often get the quality you pay for. There's exceptions of course (), but a LOT of the free content I've seen is, frankly, cobblers, and that's the risk you take..

[Lord Midas]

Yep, it was good in it's time years back. Mr Brooker's back page was always a good read too.

Ahh yes, who could forget the classic "Cruelty Zoo". Showing some child smashing in the skull of a monkey (photoshopped of course, but caused Major Controversy!!)

I've subscribed to PC Zone for, like, 17 years and have found it one of the only mags I'll read cover to cover. As well as Empire.

Now my trips to the bog will be less full.