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March 25, 2007
Stewart Alsop on InfoWorld's Demise
Venture guy Stewart Alsop, an ex- InfoWorld editor, earlier today called the print publication's impending demise "anti-climactic" because, shades of Nick Carr, "computers don't matter anymore":InfoWorld was fun because computers did matter. Personal computers mattered in the eighties; every week new models and features came out and it was exciting to participate in the reporting of those events. Networked computers mattered in the nineties and it was fun to be a key evaluator of new products for enterprises. Now that stuff is just a commodity: Personally, I’ve stopped caring about which process Intel is making and am way beyond caring about new versions of Windows or new client applications. Instead, the action has moved entirely to network based services delivered over the internet.I couldn't agree more. Then again, there is no inherent reason why, with a vague title like "InfoWorld", the magazine couldn't be writing about that subject, rather than Intel processes and new versions of Windows.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how times have changed. Ten years ago in buying a new app my main criteria would have been Windows compatibility; in buying major new app at the office last week the number one criteria was ... is it available as a web service?
[via Stewart]
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I'd rather be reading _Byte_ magazine.
On second thought [and the help of Paul Conley], this is not looking like such bad news after all:
http://paulconley.blogspot.com/2007/03/infoworld-blazes-print-free-path.html
This is the nature of the cutting edge; it cuts quickly and its former cuts are history (literally).
Seems like a lost opportunity. It's just so nice to have a brand to build on and simply following the shift to web apps could have led the way to transformation.
So that's really kind of tragic and perhaps a bit shameful.