Red Herring Magazine Shuts Down 116
Makarand writes "Red Herring Magazine
is closing its doors and joining the ranks of
magazines that rode the dot-com wave and then crashed.
Red Herring's March issue delivered to subscribers two weeks ago
will be the magazine's final issue.
The technology meltdown evaporated the magazine's
advertising revenue forcing it to
lay off most of its staff and finally close doors."
Scooped on their own closing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Scooped on their own closing... (Score:3, Funny)
Unless the story is a ..... (Score:1)
Shift was around for 10 years (Score:1)
SHI(f)T - An Inside History Redux (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not one to be repetitive, but since you brought it up, this bears repeating:
* * *
NOTE: Posted on behalf of a Slashdot reader (but not a member).
= = =
SHI(f)T - An Inside History
SHI(f)T started out as a make-work project for idle rich kids and a tax shelter for their parents.
It began its life as a wannabe literary magazine for "young writers", accepting the rejects from respected literary magazines with a mandate to discover new writers and fiction and aiming to, "Kick in the teeth of the literary establishment." Instead the literary establishment kicked SHI(f)Ts teeth in so far that they were coming out the other end.
Meeting no financial success, after 3 issues the magazine rebranded itself "the voice of an unsettled generation," still focusing on disaffected artists under 35.
With losses mounting, a few issues later they changed the focus of the magazine to "New Media and Culture" writing about the new technology of CD-ROMs, wrapped up in Doug Coupland fever, Generation-X hype and breaking their ban on coverage of anyone over 35.
With the magazine failing in its infancy and the parents of SHI(f)T's founders no longer willing to indefinitely pour unlimited funds into the fiscal black hole the project had become, the magazine looked south and decided to again relaunch and rebrand itself as Canada's version of Wired (that's actually how they promoted it). The magazine then boosted circulation by more than 500%, losing even more money, with an eye to being acquired based on high circulation numbers. The printing spree was funded by last-ditch investments from family and government artistic grants.
The parents/investors used their business connections with entertainment lawyer Michael Levine (called the Michael Ovitz of Canada) and the president of one of Canada's oldest and largest publishers, Maclean-Hunter (which was looking for new properties aimed at young people) to engineer a minority investment stake, using Wired as a benchmark to value the magazine. Insiders reported that the magazine used false subscriber numbers that were at least double the real number to garner the deal.
A year later the deal was dead, with Maclean-Hunter ceasing support for the still-floundering magazine.
Enter white knight and multi-millionaire Richard Szalwinski, founder of digital film, video and animation software company Discreet Logic (now the Discreet division of CAD/CAM software giant Autodesk).
With money to burn and a newly acquired publishing company looking for media properties, Szalwinski bought the magazine and made the founders instant millionaires.
Internal politics went crazy and the new general manager of the magazine brought in by Szalwinski cleaned house, getting rid of the good (such as new editor Laas Turnbull) along with the bad. Among the ousted was the co-founder of the magazine.
Szalwinski lost his shirt in a disastrous attempt to launch the magazine in the USA as a Wired competitor in 1999 and by this time, freelance contributors had not been paid for months. A year later, on the brink of bankruptcy, he sold the magazine back to co-founder Andrew Heintzman who financed it slashing the already-dismal salaries of employees by as much as 1/3 and asked them to pay into an employee ownership plan to help rescue the company. Most of the young, inexperienced, idealistic staffers agreed but some who didn't were laid off or fired "with cause." This still failed to buoy the sinking magazine's fortunes.
Facing bankruptcy, the employees sold the magazine to MultiVision publishing who thought they could leverage the SHI(f)T brand to relaunch the magazine. The new SHI(f)T's redesign was unreadable and the "unified" look they created made it difficult to know what you were looking at when you flipped through it. They recently killed its columns, saying they were "too long" at 800 words, eliminating the only remaining compelling content since the columnists were knowledgeable. And now they have finally decided to put the tired publication out of its misery.
Although some truly excellent writers have come through SHI(f)T, they were great in spite of it, not because of it. The majority were simply horrid. You can find some of both varieties around Slashdot (no names). The only thing that is sad about the death of this magazine is that a number of people who depended on it for part or all of their income will now be unemployed or scrambling to find some way of making up the sudden loss of revenue.
The magazine was a horribly mismanaged ego-trip at almost every stage that could never really decide if it wanted to be an arts, entertainment or technology magazine, and was master of none of these domains. Even staffers and contributors made dismissive, derisive comments about the magazine, its direction and content throughout its life, but as long as they were being paid (and even if they were not) a paycheck is a paycheck.
It proclaimed itself as Canadian but for the majority of its life it focused on American media, entertainment products and personalities, often almost indistinguishable from private label retail catalogs that masquerade as magazines.
It was a pseudo-intellectual, vapid fanboy, hype-machine wank, that preyed on the greed and fed the egos of just about everyone they duped to invest in it.
And, as we have seen time and again, the founders are laughing all the way to the bank.
March First?!?!?!? (Score:2, Funny)
Cue "Twilight Zone" music...
I'll be sad... (Score:1)
I thhought they were much more informative than Wired.
They were getting rather thin towards the end, though.
Re:Right.... (Score:2)
Re:Right.... (Score:1)
Tony Perkins was spot-on (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't blame the Red Herring for bulking up and covering the dot-com era - everyone was taking money, and if they didn't, then Fast Company or Business 2.0 or Upside or The Standard would have. Out of all of these rags the Herring had the best commentary, often far more crtical than you would expect from a venture rag.
I hope to see Perkins and some of the other talented writers from the Herring show up in another publication soon.
RH wasn't a bad magazine... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what hurt them the most is that people in this post-dotcom era, would be embarrassed if they were caught reading it! It was too "1999". Having a copy of it makes the statement "I didn't know the dotcom boom was over."
Re:RH wasn't a bad magazine... (Score:2)
Re:RH wasn't a bad magazine... (Score:1)
Maybe that was the problem...
The "Technology Elite" (Score:3, Insightful)
They're the ones who renounced the superstitious and hysterical belief in the Users, and thus were eligible to join the Elite of the MCP.
Everyone else who continued to profess this belief received the standard substandard training, which resulted in their eventual elimination in the big dotcom crash.
ASA
Re:RH wasn't a bad magazine... (Score:2)
Not sure... but I'm certain that David Brabem and Ian Bell should be included.
Oh, and I think there's also a cheat that can get you Elite status without having to actually kill for it.
Re:RH wasn't a bad magazine... (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, I saw this interesting article [callipygian.com] a few days ago that urged people not to hire anyone with a dotcom job on his resume!
Re:RH wasn't a bad magazine... (Score:2)
Re:RH was in the pocket of the globalist H1B movem (Score:2)
Software sweatshops in India!
No lessons from Slate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No lessons from Slate? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No lessons from Slate? (Score:3, Informative)
Salon started out as an ad-supported service, but now is very difficult to enjoy without a subscription.
re: Red Herring shuts down (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't believe it (Score:5, Funny)
Good riddance.
surprise? (Score:1)
You can still subscribe to Red Herring (Score:5, Funny)
So if you want to spend $34.95 for a dead magazine, you still can.
But hurry up, the website is supposed to close within two weeks.
Too bad!
Roland Piquepaille (Technology Trends [weblogs.com])
Magazines without advertising (Score:1)
It's just amazing to me that a company couldn't successfully run on that amount of revenue.
A while ago, [eatingwell.com]
Eating Well magazine got shut down because of problems with advertising revenue. This was a magazine with a fairly large loyal readership. They've started publication again, and the magazine is now entirely supported by subscriptions - there is no advertising at all. I happily pay a few dollars extra for a magazine that is 100% content (rather than 50% ads).
Re:Magazines without advertising (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You can still subscribe to Red Herring (Score:1)
Next to go - Business 2.0 (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyone want to set up a betting pool?
Who cares? (Score:1)
Now, BYTE, well, that was a loss.
Re:Who cares? (Score:1)
Right before their downfall, they started that slogan, "BYTE: It's not for everyone". I think it was this elitist attitude that did them in more than anything. Their articles often made huge assumptions that you already knew all the late breaking intricacies of Java, even though hot thing in the Java world changed every week or so. By leaving out basic explanations in favor of catering to the relatively small Javaphile group, I think it was suicide.
What we are left with? (Score:3, Interesting)
by way of example [sierratimes.com]
-
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.
Not that I watch all that much TV or anything.Re:What we are left with? (Score:2)
Here are some links, found by looking for the reporter's name
-
Tallahassee Democrat [tallahassee.com]
- Orlando Sentinal [orlandosentinel.com], (last item)
- PDF of the court Ruling [2dca.org]
- Lawsuit Website [foxbghsuit.com], with a link to video report by TV station of their victory.
- Information clearing house [64.176.94.191]
- Info on video network.com [videonetwork.org]
have Fun!...must not have looked very hard (Score:2)
Re:What we are left with? (Score:3, Insightful)
When a journalist speaks they have the same legal rights to lie and cheat and bend reality that you do. Journalism is simply an expression of first ammendment rights, no more, no less.
But what happens if someone lies to you? You don't sue them, unless there was legally definable fraud involved. What you do is *never believe another word they say.*
KFG
Maybe I'm just a heartless bastard ... (Score:2, Troll)
There are very few geeks who want to read things on paper (bite me if you're one of the geeks who likes paper shit). And this is actually the first time I've ever heard this magazine mentioned in quite some time, you sure they're just NOW dead??
Ach! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ach! (Score:1)
This is not surprising. (Score:1)
With terrorist attacks all over the globe most people chease to understand the "freedom for all" and "technology for everyone" slogans. Their very lifes being threatend their come back to their basic moral values represented by conservatives. It's no surprise to Bush gained so much popularity after 9/11. John Average has less and less understanding for people who just want to give money or free information to underpriviledged countries instead of exporting their moral values which made the US successful to them. So publications like Red Herring are not favored any longer by the majority of their readers. However, the core libertarian followers don't impose a decent customer base. Especially with their everything-for-free attitude. So for journals like Red Herring the market is simply evaporating which kills them in long term.
What's the REAL story? (Score:3, Funny)
Shut down, eh? Yeah, right--what's the real story they're trying to hide??
[hint [reference.com]]
perpetuating myths (Score:5, Insightful)
Which of course was silly. Most of us saw it then, and everyone knows it now. New technology does make a few very rich, a few more somewhat rich, but leaves most people about the same or worse off. That is history. I think I benefitted from the bubble, but I didn't take advantage of it or treat it a genie to grant all my wishes. I worked as hard when I was doing .com work as I did when I was doing other work, and did not get paid that much more. That is the way it should be.
Of course it is important to remember that it wasn't just the technology sector that was in an unreality field. All of the Enron finances, one amoung many now defunct or troubled traditional companies, depended on the stock never falling. Many law firms are in trouble because they thought that bankruptcy practices would never again be profitable or needed. Schools districts are cutting staff or days because the tax model assumed that property values would never fall. In other words, good riddance to the media that perpetuated these myths.
Re:perpetuating myths (Score:3, Insightful)
Where in the world did you hear this? I have never heard this, at least among large firms. It just wouldn't make sense to get rid of an existing bankruptcy practice, which is what you imply. Bankruptcy law existed before, during, and after the bubble; no lawyer I know thought that bankruptcy law would ever be gone.
If you're thinking about firms that don't have bankruptcy practices at all, you misunderstand the nature of bankruptcy. Firms that tend to represent fledgling, highly risky privately-financed companies, like tech firms, for example, really shouldn't have bankruptcy practices because of potential conflicts of interest. While one could envision a strongly "walled-off" bankruptcy practice within such firms, it would be impractical and, yes, a waste of money. But the decision not to have a bankruptcy practice based on the foregoing certainly doesn't evidence that such firms believed that no one would ever go bankrupt again. On the contrary, even during the boom it was very hard for a company to succeed; it's not like these companies stopped facing the prospect of bankruptcy for a few years in the late 90s and early 2000. It was very much a specter.
Finally, if you're thinking specifically about a certain tech law firm that recently went away, and you think it's because of a lack of a bankruptcy practice, you'd be dead wrong, for the reasons I've already stated -- yes, business dropped significantly after the burst, but because of conflicts of interest, the firm would never have made up for it with a bankruptcy practice.
Re:perpetuating myths (Score:2)
But you can't afford a car so you have to bus or walk to work. You buy your clothes at K-Mart, but only when they're on sale. It hurts when you have to eat at a Burger King because one meal there costs as much as three days food prepared at home.
Now lets look at this from the perspective of how technology can make us rich.
Your studio apartment came with wall to wall carpeting. So much the very symbol of opulent wealth 100 years ago that they can still get away with calling roach infested dry wall shit boxes "luxury" apartments just because of this one feature. You have a TV, which only cost you one weeks pay. A VCR that only cost you 1/2 a weeks pay. A flush toilet. Safe hot and cold running water with a bathtub right in *your own apartment.* A phone. A host of other small items that not too long ago would have been wonders of the world that kings would have gone to war just to possess.
For the working poor at least technology has made them wealthier than the wildest dreams of their ancestors, they just don't have the perspective to what they *have,* instead of what they don't have.
Money is nice to have, in some ways a lot of money is nicer to have, but anyone making anything above minimum wage simply isn't as poor, defined by lacking necessities, as they think they are.
Now don't get me wrong. This isn't some upper middle class rant about how the poor should just shut up, go to work, and be happy, while I'm sitting by the pool waiting for Juanita to bring my Scotch. I'm stating simple observable fact.
Fact that if you take to heart you can use as a tool in manipulating your *own* life into forms you yourself might just find more enjoyable. Especially if you are *not* poor.
KFG
Re:perpetuating myths (Score:2)
Of course not. Your housekeeper's name is Joan.
Re:perpetuating myths (Score:2)
No, history shows the opposite. Technology has, on the whole, made everyone richer. Of course, there are plenty of poor people in the US today, but they are far better off than poor people were a thousand years ago, or even a few hundred. And they are far better off then poor people (which is almost everyone) in undeveloped countries.
Re:perpetuating myths (Score:2)
Red Herring, Wired and Forbes are very different magazines. Red Herring was focused on the Venture Capital audience, both people peddling ideas and capitalists looking for ideas to fund.
Wired was aimed initially at nerds, and later on towards the hip crowd in Sillicon Alley in Manhattan (in fact most of my friends, who are nerds like me stopped reading it during the transition and moved on to
New technology does make a few very rich, a few more somewhat rich, but leaves most people about the same or worse off.
This is plain unadulterated horseshit.
I'd suggest you try washing cloths using a washboard, after hauling water from the well. after you are done try then using a washing machine. I'm pretty sure you'd be singing to a different tune after that. This is not to say that all technology has been a godsend, but overall the net effect has been positive.
It's (good/not good) to be the king (Score:1)
The fallout from the 2001 terrorist attacks and corporate scandals of last year compounded Red Herring's problems, said Tony Perkins, the magazine's founder and a columnist until the end.
"The Red Herring was like a small vessel trying to navigate this perfect storm," said Perkins, who got Friday's bad news when he tried to turn in his column for the April issue. "I feel like we continued to put out a great magazine, but it would have been a miracle if we had survived all this."
Hopefully the founders of Slashdot have better rapport with the owners.
Good post, wish I would've thought of it.
Check the magazine while it lasts (Score:2)
I interviewed there... (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news, my RH subscription doesn't expire until 2006. Who's got my check?
Letsee, Dot Com Flame-Out? (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad, I actually liked that magazine. Really too bad that my wife just re-upped my subscription for another year too.
Hmmm. Take money, promise something, fail to deliver and fail to return the money after it's all spent. Yep, sounds like a dot-com flame-out tactic.
Red Herring had to fabricate news to have news ... (Score:3, Insightful)
They often fabricated a story, called it news, or inside reports, so as to get hits in slump periods.
When will people stop with the "9/11 excuse"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Its VERY hard for me to see how 9/11 or Enron could affect a magazine to any great degree. I guess as long as Tony doesn't have to accept any PERSONAL responsibility for the magazine's demise, then he doesn't have to do any serious soul searching about his flawed business plan. The economy was on the way down before 9/11 and Enron. Its obvious he couldn't adjust to the new circumstances.
Why not throw in "the sun was in my eyes" and "my shoes were too tight" while he's at it?
Re:When will people stop with the "9/11 excuse"? (Score:2)
Because he walked barefoot around his roman baths all day, surrounded by beautiful women who kept the sun out of his eyes with large palm leaves, all thanks to that sweet, sweet venture capital.
What I am trying to say here is I personally think you're being to hard on the guy. Tony is a good boy and his heart is in the right place, ok?
Seriously, don't a shitload of magazines go under every year - I wouldn't be surprised considering how many there seem to be these days and the repetitiveness of the topics they seem to cover is amazing. I mean, how many magazines about making Christmas decorations do I need, and why do they sell the bloody things every three months?
Re:When will people stop with the "9/11 excuse"? (Score:2)
Or, even better, on the return of Battlestar Galactica.
This is exactly why... (Score:1, Troll)
Anyway, my point is this. Red Herring might not have had information YOU find interesting, indeed not enough people found the information interesting, but the magazine would never had existed had they simply given the content away for free, sans ads, sans dead tree versions. Their message might have gotten out but it would likely have not been as widespread and it would have likely shut down a lot sooner. Salon is learning this first hand right now as well though I certainly lay some, or perhaps much, of the blame on their wasting a lot of money needlessly.
Instead of replying with the obvious, yet ridiculous, comment of "they should have found a better sustainable business model", why don't you offer a suggestion for a better business model. For if you are wise enough to question the way things work now, you should be wise enough to offer some ideas of ways to fix things in a way that is realistic.
Re:This is exactly why... (Score:2)
Re:This is exactly why... (Score:2)
Re:This is exactly why... (Score:2)
They should Open Source the magazine, obviously.
Then, well... uhh... they'll profit?
This is a loss. The Red Herring was useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
The editors of the Red Herring did correctly predict the collapse of the dot-com bubble. Their book, The Internet Bubble [amazon.com], which came out in late 1999, made it clear what was going to happen. I ran into the authors at Kepler's Books in 1999, and that's what convinced me to get out of the market, do Downside [downside.com] and pick losers.
The Industry Standard was also a good magazine. Upside, though, was pure hype.
Wired ought to have gone under by now, too. But they were bought by Lycos, which was bought by Terra Networks, which went down from 140 to 5 on the NASDAQ. Maybe they'll sell Wired off to Sharper Image as an additional catalog line.
WiReD (Score:2)
The WiReD news portal is run by Terra Lycos...however.
-psy
Re:WiReD (Score:2)
Re:This is a loss. The Red Herring was useful. (Score:1)
In case you missed it, there is no "Silicon Valley venture capital community" anymore. Sure there are a few VC firms still functioning, trying to squeeze a few pennies back out of each dollar they invested, but the rate of new investment in this valley is well below the rate before the boom.
Something to consider: Montgomery Street didn't start laying off their analysts for high tech startups until late last year, as recently as last June they believed there would be a return to serious investment (and I worked with a pre-funded startup seeking funding.) Now? They don't expect any investment in technology for quite a while, and we entrepeneurs need to find a new model to get off the ground.
From the editor-in-chief (Score:3, Informative)
I read Red Herring once. (Score:3, Interesting)
But it was free, so I read a few articles: it was all the same sort of ludicrous "New Economy! Balance Sheets and ROI are things of the past! Paradigm Shift!" horseshit that Wired and a dozen others were spewing out. Straight into the bin.
Where am I.... (Score:1)
More coming (Score:3, Informative)
Web techniques (Score:1)
Hang in there, team Netly! (Score:2)
It was just a way of recycling VC funding (Score:1)
Better dead than Red? (Score:1)
Re:I'm so mad, I'm not going to RTFA (Score:2)
Uh... But RH isn't making money. The story is about how they are going out of business. But ABC news is still in business. Therefore you are full of stinky stuff; QED...
Re:I'm so mad, I'm not going to RTFA (Score:2)
You REALLY think the website makes money?
Therefore you are without financial retoric.
Yo Grark
Re:I'm so mad, I'm not going to RTFA (Score:1)
Re:I'm so mad, I'm not going to RTFA (Score:1)
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/