All of our articles and reviews can be viewed in a printer friendly format, so there really isn't a need for PDFerising anything, as far as I can see.Quote:
Originally Posted by dew1911©
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All of our articles and reviews can be viewed in a printer friendly format, so there really isn't a need for PDFerising anything, as far as I can see.Quote:
Originally Posted by dew1911©
Thing with magazines also is the fact that at times the ontent can be a few weeks old due to it being monthly. Something misses the print deadline and its another month before its seen in the magazine.
At least when you visit HEXUS the content is updated daily and you have a decent flow of excellent reviews and active board. So all in all you are more up to date coming here than actually buying a magazine.
Finally not forgetting, to get what HEXUS offers in magazine form you would have to buy a few monthly mags (Custom PC, PC Zone, PC Format and way to many others ! ) HEXUS covers gaming, hardware and the boards have Cars & Bikes, Lifestyle etc. Everything is under one publication here at HEXUS.net
I know what I prefer !
Most mobile phones have a proper web browser on them now (Opera) so you could just log onto GPRS web service and browse / read HEXUS content while out and about or on the train. I used to do this myself last year when I got my Nokia 6600 while I was having quiet days at work !
The .PDF or .doc of a magazine would be a reasonable trade off
It would allow you to combine a lot of the work that you do. It has limited startup costs and you certainly have a large market.
The advantage of a PDf magazine over the content already offered is that you don't need to be online to read it. Sur eyou could go through and cache all of the hecus reviews but who really is going to do that, while you could down load the PDf to read on the train or something.
I'm also farly sure a lot of people wouldn't mind paying a small download fee.
We are looking in to all of these things :)
The net certainly has its advantages but IMO it is still a long way from being able to replace print.Quote:
Originally Posted by David
For one I dont want to sit like of a dork in front of a screen after work to read my tech news and reviews, after sitting infront of screen all day at work I want to be able to sit down on the sofa with my coffee and read my PCpro etc in peace :p.
Now some people would try and convince me I should be reading Hexus on my PDA tbh I wont be doing that until either Hexus starts writing all its articles in plain text or we get decent tablets/e-paper that can display websites at their proper size.
But even then web layout and design has a hell of a long way to go until it comes close to what you can achieve with print. Centre aligned text interspersed with a few photos is about par for course in most online tech articles. Then to get a decent look at one of the pictures I have to click on a photo and which then loads a new page or opens a new box which I then have to close again before going back to main article :(.
Maybe a delivered subscription rather than putting it in the shops :)..
that would be cool.. I'd subscribe anyway.
zdnet used to do a monthly(ish) delivered newsletter type thing.. with all the latest technology news, made for an interesting read :)
edit: I must agree I find it /far/ easier to read from a mag lay in bed or sat on the sofa than trawling the interweb.. I hate staring at a monitor (even though I do it 9hours a day :rolleyes: ).
I am not going to get in to the print vs net arguement - trust me, we have thought about this. You need to look at the fall in the number of readers of these titles and the increase of ours. I am not saying we are the be all and end all - and both mediums can exist hand in hand. But, the Internet really has these publishing firms stumpt.Quote:
Originally Posted by turkster
The beauty of online which most have missed is the fact that we can have a lot more real estate and pages online than you can have in print.
HEXUS is looking in to things which we can offer - if only we could get some voice software to read the HEXUS content in to a podcast? :)
Everything we do has to be a buisness and commercial decision. We can't just offer something for a week - its a longer term thing for us
Well thats certainly a good thing and that is probably the main reason online sites are getting a larger audience than printed publication. Online sites are attracting an audience for all the content they have ever put up while printed publications are relying only on the content of the latest issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by David
At the same time the massive choice of online content in the tech area these days means that are more likely to be looking for a particular review/article than generally browsing through any particular online site. So an online site is not going to get the captive/loyal audience that a magazine gets. After all once you've bought a magazine you are kind of obliged to read it whereas online you might read one review on Hexus, the next one on Tech Review, Anandtech etc etc.
From a commercial point of view this surely means that a online site is going to need to attract a much larger audience than a print publication before advertisers start taking them seriously. Also advertisements on an online site have nothing like the prominence of those in a print publication. The kind of impact a full back cover advertisment on a magazine has cannot really be achieved online without annoying the audience. Print adds are often nice to look at, interesting, witty, etc while online flashing banner ads are rarely anything but annoying :(. I think that the integration of advertising into online "publications" is something that could be improved with a bit of thought.
We have taken some very strong moves to make sure our advertising works, and delivers results - this is something which we are proud to say.
We do a lot of things which are commercially orientated. We are a company, we do have costs - and staff to pay.
People look at HEXUS and have said to me before they didn't think it was a company - hell it is :)
I agree the print has some advantage - but what happens when you do end up with a PC in your toilet, or everyone carries a notebook.
Meaning Radio isn't going to die because we all have iPods but there has to be change.
We are full steam ahead and a profitable company - this is something which is very impressive bare in mind we have not had investment from 3rd parties.
We believe HEXUS really does just do it right.
David, just as a matter of interest, did you ever envisage Hexus would be such a respected & succesful enterprise when you started out?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 0iD
Nope :) It was just a bit of fun...