Joe Wikert commented on a blog entry from Alan Meckler, CEO of JupiterMedia, regarding the death of technical print magazines. I have to side with Alan on this. Ten years ago, I had paid subscriptions to 5 tech magazines. Now I have free subscriptions to 3 tech magazines and no paid subscriptions. I don’t think a publisher could convince me to pay for a print magazine subscription at this point. Maybe I’d buy a print subscription if the mag had great content plus a kickin website that offered additional content, but then I’m not really paying to get just the magazine. The internet makes short content pieces like you find in print magazines all but obselete.

Here is a quote from Alan’s blog:

Our Bradley Jones of JupiterWeb points out that the technical book and technical magazine markets are being destroyed by the Internet.

“Destroyed” is a strong word. I think it is happening, but we are lacking internet publishers that are competing with book publishers head on. There are lots of internet publishers that are competing with magazine content and that’s why print mags are dropping off one by one.

Alan goes on to say:

News reports are full of stories about the creative destruction from the Net going on in many industries around the world. However not much has been written about what is happening in the tech trade publishing world.

That’s exactly what I’m doing! The Internet Publishing Manifesto is my initial attempt to outline what needs to change. Comments welcome.

I’d comment on Alan’s blog but as Joe points out, Alan doesn’t allow comments or trackbacks (which seems a little odd) much less provide a way to contact him.