Magazines are born and magazines die. That is part of a healthy market. Andrew Losowsky has a nostalgia piece in today’s Independent about his ten favourite magazines that have died in the last 50 years. Its a good list. I remember reading or looking at most of them, but not Sniffin’ Glue (which unsurprisingly had a short life — 1976-77) and two of them, Lilliput and Picture Post had died before I got interested in magazines. We can think of good one’s that he has missed. What happened to the wonderful Illustrated London News? Wikipedia suggests that it is still published bi-annually, but its a long time since I have seen a copy. I also (occasionally — and I am not yearning and pining for them) regret the absence of The Listener (d 1991) and New Society (merged with New Statesman in 1988).
From John Battelle’s Search Blog I caught the news that Infoworld is ceasing print publication. In the 1990’s Infoworld, with its tabloid format, colour throughout, multi-column newsprint, and entertaining columnists Metcalfe and Cringely, was my weekly bible on software development and happenings in the PC market … but that was before the web and when a personal sub airmailed from the US cost over $200+. Magazines, especially B2B periodicals, need to work with the web and exploit it or they will be rolled over.
Adrian
Sniffing Glue was a landmark in DIY magazine publishing – there was a printed anthology of the first 10 issues published in 1978.