What's with Martial Arts Magazines these days?

[Serpent]

Gene - do you think print media has an actual lifespan now in the face of digital? Will there come a time when the print magazine is extinct?

[Kymus]

Originally posted by GeneChing
kymus - how's that different then this? I'm mean call let's a spade a spade...

What I meant, was a program for you so that all you do is click the product on some little program that is running, and it pops up the link for you. It'd be a tiny bit easier than navigating through the site. It was an amusing stupid joke almost. lol, for me anyways

[GeneChing]

... only comic books have a vintage, so to speak, but other print magazines get very dated quickly. I don't think that print magazines will ever die out completely, but there has already been some dramatic shifts in the business. Mags like Reader's Digest and TV Guide, once kings of the hill, are plummeting. Celeb mags like People and Men's mags like FHM and Maxim are starting to dominate.

On our level - the martial world - it's getting really hard to keep a nitche on the newsstands. Most newsstands only have room for one martial arts magazine, but there are so many different tastes out there - each of us is trying to specialize in it's own market, in hopes that it will dominate. So we are simlutaneously getting wider and narrower, if you can envision that.

Of course, the net has had it's effect - obviously or we wouldn't even be having this dialog. That's really where the market is at now, but not so much for outside vendors, so the mags that rely on external ads aren't really engaging it. This may change over time. Right now, many advertisers and writers are hesitant about investing in the net, just because of old preconceptions. You cna't hold the net in your hand like a mag. But you can hold it in your palm or even on your phone, which makes it ultimately more powerful. In fact, our e-zine articles tend to get more exposure than our print ones over time.

[Vash]

I for one hope that the prints don't go out of style. But, even if they do, I doubt it'll be before I'm dead and gone.

I like the shiny paper. You can't feel shiny paper on the internet. Legally, at least.

[Ben Gash]

I can't read off my desktop in the bath (or the John for that matter)

[GeneChing]

...I'm glad our magazine keeps you regular.