Stop the Presses!!
My very thin issue of Geospatial Solutions magazine arrived yesterday. Alas, it was the final print version of the magazine, launched in 1990. Amy Stankiewicz, Editor in Chief wrote, in part, “…I proudly announce our decision to say goodbye to our monthly print magazine so that we may focus more energy and effort on building an online community resource that provides timely and targeted business, technical, and purchasing information for the growing number of geospatial technology users worldwide.”
There was no mention of declining ad revenues or fewer readers of its print magazine. Or, for that matter, an increase in hits on its Web site. Ms. Stankiewicz offers a “newly redesigned Web site” as well as e-mail newsletters. The Web site looks good, with clear organization, clean graphics, and loads of content. I always liked the magazine – a good mix of news and feature stories along with nice graphics and photographs. Also impressive is the editorial advisory board with industry luminaries including Dangermond, Goodchild, Huxhold, Thrall, and Tomlinson.
The owner of Geospatial Solutions is Questex Media Group, which owns 23 trade publications and runs 25 conferences and trade shows. While the trade pubs include related rags such as GPS World and GeoIntelligence, it also owns American Salon, Premier Spas, and Travel Agent Magazine. Questex just bought Geospatial Solutions as part of Advanstar Communications Inc. in April 2005, in a $185 million cash deal.
So why the change? This does not seem like a long-planned move. The media kit still on the Geospatial Solutions Web site has an editorial calendar through 2006. Questex doesn’t seem to be out of money – yesterday it announced a merger with InfoTrends, Inc., a consulting and market research firm specializing in digital imaging and document solutions. Perhaps the editors came to the conclusion their audience just isn’t reading paper trade publications as much. The 27,000 print subscribers is a higher number than the 17,000 e-mail newsletter recipients or the 15,000 unique Web site visitors. However, print media is expensive and perhaps the advertising revenue was insufficient. Perhaps the shift of ad spending to other venues, including online, led to an unsustainable situation.
What do you think? Will you miss the print version of Geospatial Solutions?
1 comment on “Stop the Presses!!”
Leave a comment
You must be connected to write a comment.
[…] Publish or Perish? A couple of weeks ago, Geospatial Solutions declared its final print issue. But as described in my previous post, the publication is continuing its efforts online. Last week, my latest issue of GeoWorld arrived, which upon reading the opening editor’s page I quickly learned it is now “the sole GIS-centric publication in print.” The article continues to explain the importance of print media, with its “sense of permanence” and part of an “integrated media” approach involving online and print. Whoa! Apparently #2 made a big mistake turning off the presses. (Integration note: the URL for GeoWorld is geoplace.com, not geoworld.com) […]