GamePro to Print Bitmob Community Articles
Trying harder and harder to be more like a blog, the fairly popular GamePro magazine is teaming up with Bitmob to try something new starting in their April issue: They’re featuring an article from a Bitmob community member every month.
In a world where blogs, Twitter, and RSS exist, older forms of media (specifically, magazines and newpapers) are struggling to keep up with the new kids on the block. One of the many advantages that new media has over old media is the instantaneous nature of feedback from your readers/userbase. A website owner can quickly do a search (be it on Twitter or Google) for the title (or if you want to get into the nitty-gritty, the URL) of their content, and see where it’s being talked about, or trashed.
A lot of magazines have had a “letters from the readers” section, where readers could send in letters if they disagreed with an article, or had something to add. While this was a slow, not always useful addition since you never knew if the editors even read your letter, it brought us a step closer to the blog comment, and having anyone who read your article instantly voice their opinion.
One lucky writer will get their name and thoughts emblazoned in ink every month on the pages of GamePro. GamePro’s John Davison says that this new venture will “help develop the careers of new writers.” Maybe I’ll just make a Bitmob account and ditch all of you beautiful people.
But then I wouldn’t be able to have the same style that I do here. I’d be thinking to myself “What do the Bitmob editors want to publish in GamePro?” I wouldn’t just be able to vent about people who are trying to cling to print magazines when the trees are dying out.
Magazines are yesterday’s news, with more and more folding every week, I’m not sure this is a great move for GamePro. Despite a healthy circulation figure of just under three million, I doubt they’ll be around in print form for much longer with all of the news surrounding tablets and book-reading devices and software that came out of CES.
If this switch does happen, GamePro ought to be quick to jump on getting their magazine on these potential devices. Hopefully the mag will be available across of these “tablets” so they don’t lose any of their subscriber base. If not, this is basically free (not sure of the specifics of the deal, but I assume that it will be) registered users for Bitmob.
John Davidson is a clever guy, and he’s clearly trying to shake things up at GamePro. We all know that what’s worked for print in the past is a losing plan, so they’ve got to try something. The irony is screaming though.
John Davidson talked on an older Bitmob podcast about how one of the reasons EGM failed while under Ziff management was because they were using a business model that was losing large amounts of money, but Ziff wasnt willing to budge, and insisted that they would recoup the losses somewhere down the line, which as we all know never happened.
Its good that hes trying something new, but i don’t see this as a subscription sealing addition.