.net magazine 189

Back in the mid-90s, .net magazine came along and told all us geeks about revolutionary things like commercial websites, popular newsgroups and dialup accounts.

I read it for a year or two, and then forgot all about it.  Recently it caught my eye in Tesco.  I picked up a copy, and it seemed to have changed, it now seemed to be for people who built websites.

I finally got around to buying it today, and stuck it in my basket along with my Bank Holiday provisions.

It was read in half an hour, and the 130 pages were easily consumed.  It seemed a little light, and somewhat superficial. I think it seems to be aimed at web designers and developers.  Their advertising page claims it is “essential reading for professional web designers and developers”, but I think that’s bigging it up a bit.  I think it’s really aimed at aspiring web designers and developers.

You know, the bedroom web site writers.  (Ignore the fact that I work from a bedroom!  I’ve seen the light since experiencing a gaggle of staff and office overheads!)  Perhaps maybe the small web site building companies, the one man bands who wack together sites for pet shops and butchers.  It features interviews from bigger agencies and online properties, and I’m sure a copy might kick around on their reception coffee table, along with New Media Age and Campaign, I doubt they actually read it.

The advertising was very peculiar: it was 90% for domains and hosting companies!  You can get so much for your clients for so little!  There was also a VERY incongruous an advert for  Solar Hot Water Heating company…

There was a two page advert for subscriptions, announcing I could pay an amazing £12.50 per QUARTER!  I nearly fell out of the bath.  I was kind of expecting that sort of price twice a year, not 4 times a year.  How much was this publication exactly?  I looked at the cover, and there was no price on the front!  It was sneakily on the back cover, in very small print, printed sideways on vertically along the bar code.  

<blink>£5.99!</blink>

Five pounds 99 pence!  How much!?  I’m sorry, but I’m used to magazines being 4 or 5 quid, but not 6.  And certainly not for a skinny 130 pages.  I guess they are hoping that ‘professionals’ will just sink the cost into their overheads, at that price it’s a significant overhead!

I shalln’t be buying it again, but luckily, it’s thin enough to just about read stood in Tesco, to see who’s blowing their own trumpet.