The debate on whether printed newspapers and magazines are going to die out or not comes up fairly often. I’m not going to into pro or con mode right now, but I will share a thought that comes to me every time I write an article for a paper mag (I do, now less than before, write for Croatia’s leading IT magazine Bug).
I’ve written thousands of articles (most not in English, mind you) for paper media in the 6 years I’m in this business, and frankly, it feels like wasted time. Unless you’re an avid collector of these magazines, which most people aren’t these days, you can’t read these articles anymore. They’re lost in dusty basements, and forgotten archives, and most of them are - for all practical purposes - non existant.
By contrast, the stuff I’ve written on this blog, however casual, is available for everyone to read, indexed by search engines, saved on social media sites such as Digg and Delicious, linked to by other blogs - in short, it’s there.
And I won’t even go into the financial implications; the articles that went out in print, well, I got paid for them once, and that was it. With the small amount of advertising I have on this blog, my old thoughts are still making me money. We’re not talking huge amounts of money here, but it’s enough for all my monthly coffee needs. Whenever I drink coffee, from now to forever, it’s been paid by this blog.
It’s funny that many of my colleagues and business associates still value the stuff I’ve done for print mags more than the stuff I’ve written online. Many of them don’t even know I have a blog. Little do they know that in fact, if I had started, 6 years ago, to spend my energy entirely on my online endeavors, I’d probably have done better for myself.
I still love print magazines, I always did. I love having that shiny copy of Wired in my hands, even though it’s 90% ads and 10% articles. Today, most printed publications also archive most, if not all, of their stuff online. But let’s face it; today, if it’s not online, it’s dead. Print is just an afterthought, and - unless we see some real breakthroughs in e-paper soon - I expect most of it to fall into the same category as vinyl records and wrist watches; a bit of cool, a dash of retro, a pinch of exclusivity, but not really a necessity.
Thank yew! I’m inspired to re-up my bloggin’. I quit when I posted a sad memorial and couldn’t bear to go back and look at it.
Carolie
Two thoughts: Six years equals 2190 days. You say you’ve written “thousands” of articles in that time. That’s almost one article every day! (Considering that “thousands” is be boiled down to its lowest common denominator of 2000.) You are quite a prolific writer.
And two: When did wristwatches become superfluous?
that was really good post..thanks
bloggersmosaic.com
@jim: I have written thousands of articles. My average, overall is probably 5 per day. However, you’re right, most of these have been for online media. Here’s an example, though. I’ve been writing a summary of new web sites, twentyish or so, on a monthly basis for several years. If I blogged those, each site as an individual post, I could have had a “cool website of the day” type of website with a nice, large archive. And that’s just one example.
re: wristwatches: since cell phones showed up. (;