Re: Proposal for a PostgreSQL Print Magazine

Le 15/03/2011 15:30, Peter Eisentraut a écrit :
> On tor, 2011-03-10 at 23:53 +0100, damien clochard wrote:
>> I think that would be great to have a print media to keep in touch
>> with this large user base, because these are the folks that will
>> recommend PostgreSQL to their clients, co-workers, directors, etc.
>
> That sounds nice and all, but this is 2011. There is a reason that
> print media are struggling worldwide: the economics don't work out
> anymore.

i think the situation is a little more complex... You have two big
different types of print media : newspapers (daily and weekly journals)
which are clearly into a crisis right now but, on the other hand
magazines are doing pretty well.

In fact, lots of people have stopped buying newspaper because they can
find the info on the internet or have it in free/advertismenent-paid
media, however they still buy magazines on special topics (sports and
hobbies, local info, etc.)

I don't have any figures to prove that but i'm pretty sure the number of
different print magazines has never been so high and advertising
revenues are increasing for magazines since a few years.

> Aside from the difficulties to set up a company of editors,
> writers, layout experts, etc., how will you arrange printing and
> distribution?
>

Good point. The whole idea is to have a benevolent team making the PDF
version in english and then one translating team for each languages.

Printing (and shipping) will be left to local user groups. If they can
have fundings from a company to print them, good for them ! If they want
to sell it on booth , it's ok too :)

> About distributing this at conferences: I fear it's ultimately going to
> be giveaway-CD 2.0: everyone grabs one, most will throw it away.
>

Any print media will be thrown away eventually. That's their destiny :)

Seriously, this is clearly the question : will people read it or not ?
and that's the all point of doing an issue #0 ...

Personnaly, i think that a print mag can't be compared to CD and i
believe that it will be read, based on the popularity of the PostgreSQL
articles in GNU/Linux Magazine France.

Another way to ensure that people will actually read the magazine is to
make them pay, even a small price (1 or 2€). This will cover the
printing costs and the symbolic act of paying will be enough for people
to (at least) open it :)

> What would be useful is an electronic medium that is somewhere above
> planet. Think LWN for PostgreSQL: quality-controlled articles published
> on a regular schedule. You still need to have some editors and some
> technical staff, but the barrier to get it started is much lower, you
> will reach a much larger audience, and you can still make print editions
> or iPad apps out of the content later on.
>

Well the Subscription-based economic model of LWN is really stange to
me. I don't think they will get any large audience with that.

In fact, i think we are not talking of the same audience at all. With a
print Magazine, we can touch users that don't even know what
planet.postgresql.org is...

How could these users go to a "LWN for PostgreSQL" website and pay for
quality-controlled content ? I'm not saying it's a bad idea . Actually i
think it could work. But it's a completely different project.

--
damien clochard
dalibo.com | dalibo.org