Linux Magazine is dead, long live Linux Magazine!

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 24 June 2008 15:32

Business IT - Networking

iTWire is a good example of where the web will win out every single time: news reporting. The whole point about news is immediacy, if not getting the story first then getting it in a timely manner. Something that print publications with long lead times cannot hope to match.

Even daily newspapers are having to admit that the web does news better, and that's why most have a thriving online version as well. If you want to read it first you read it online. Print publications must regroup and refocus, in the case of news an IT magazine has to look at providing in-depth analysis of the story rather than just the headline these days.

Longer lead times work in favour of in-depth analysis and give print the edge in this regard. Cut out the immediacy requirement and the writer is given space to explore and analyse.

But this competitive edge can only hold up for so long, and news is only a part of what most IT magazines do. In time I think that Hess will be proved right and, at least in the world of IT, print magazines will go the way of papyrus and smoke signals.

But not any time soon.