By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
It was bigger than a catalog and printed at the same place that did the New York city phone books. It has thousands of pages of ads, many on newsprint, and sandwiched in-between was some amazingly good content – for those who bothered to look. “Shopper” was the first computer magazine to be purchased for the ads, no matter how much we wanted it to be otherwise.
And yet, I got to write a column with Bill O’Brien called the Hard Edge that lasted for 13 years and had a pretty hardcore tech following. I also got death threats, proposals, and even a few letters from death row asking for technical advice (all in a day’s work.) I loved that column and I miss it today.
So, it was with sadness I sat down today to write that a former ZD college sent me a link about the end of the print edition of Computer Shopper. I know that it is not a shock to see this happen in the current economic state all publishing is in, but in my own way, it still makes me sad. To Stan Veit the passionate creator who never stopped caring, and to everyone I got to work with back then – thanks for a great and unforgettable ride.
Alice Aside: I love how Shopper was the first mag that sold ads on the cover. An unthinkable move that the NYTimes is starting to do now with its front page.
The April 2009 issue, hitting newsstands and mailboxes imminently, will be our last print edition. (It’s a doozy, we think. Buy one to show your grandkids one day!) Only after we sent it to the presses was it clear that it would be the final edition, so you won’t find it full of elegies to a bygone golden age of print computer journalism, nor full of “last call!†entreaties to join us online. (It’s clear that plenty of our readers already are, looking at our traffic statistics.) It’s just packed with good, solid advice and reviews.
But that’s not to say that the departure of our print magazine is any kind of an end for us—quite to the contrary. It’s just an evolutionary step. Computer Shopper, the geek bible, a companion of so many PC hobbyists and the onetime foe of mail-delivery people everywhere (for many years, the titanic-size Shopper gave your local phone book an inferiority complex) is now going fully digital here at ComputerShopper.com. Source: John Burek, Computer Shopper.com
We Say: A major toast to Shopper and those who kept it going long after we did. Too bad you didn’t get to do a final issue, but I’ll snap up the April 2009 issue for my collection. I still have a huge foam-core blow up of a magazine cover in my garage – it’s almost as big as my car. Those were the days…
While it’s probably better for the Earth that we go more and more paperless, the demise of printed publications is a sad state of affairs to say the least.
If they’d make a Kindle III that was in color, about at least as big as the current Computer Shopper is, and about as thin, then I’d go fully paperless in a second. Though not at $400 as it’s likely going to cost!
AND they have to stop using silly “proprietary” formats like the Zinio Reader does and just stick with *THE* de facto standard of PDF. PC Magazine just went all digital and the very first issue I got failed to download and there was no way to get it for at least a week. I think had it just been a PDF, there would not have been a problem. Not a good start. I canceled my subscription.
It’s just not as much fun as it used to be to immerse yourself in several computer magazines at once and soak up all the knowledge as we once did.
Bye Computer Shopper!
Hello Alice, I read you and Bill’s work in Computer Shopper from the beginning and was sad to see you go back then. I used to go to the news stand and pickup the 2+ pound Shopper (even kept a couple just to show the younguns someday). Sorry to see it go but I guess it’s a sign of the “green” times. Keep up the great work Alice. Thanks
I learned a lot from the shopper, read it cover to cover. It did have “amazingly good content” It put all the rest to shame.
“At the very least, it was fun,” Alice said as she reached into her bag and pulled out the last twelve issues of Shopper while waiting for her Margarita –shaken, not blended.
Back when I was a much younger geek and taking college computer courses, I used to buy the massive periodical that was Computer Shopper. I drooled over the computer ads for things I couldn’t afford, but hoped to get someday. Alice and Bill’s column was a big part of the fun for many years. It’s sad that things have to change and we have to get older.
Cheers.
I quit reading Computer Shopper when the Hard Edge ended. It was always the first thing I turned to in the magazine. I’ve always missed the lab of doom and pepsi cola.
I assume you were contacted by a former ZD colleague, not college?
Wow… I still have a subscription to CS… So what happens next? I guess I am sad, but glad that I did not renew.
I remember when that magazine was as thick and heavy as the phone book of a major city! (and bigger then most)
Back in my college days, I shared an apartment with 3 guys. We fought over shared expenses to the point that we wound up each having our own stash of toilet paper and we’d just remember to bring a roll with us.
Well, one day a friend of mine is over and he heads off to the bathroom. About 10 minutes later he comes back and throws a Computer Shopper on the floor. “You better be glad I had that with me!”
Thanks for the memories, including that one.
Alice, I remember well your columns with Bill, and I miss them, and the excitement they brought to me…looking forward to reading about the latest stuff. It was an exciting time, when each year brought real, dramatic, useful improvements…maybe even every month! Now it has all plateaued, it seems that even low end gear is better than most of us can take advantage of. Great in a way, but too bad in a way, at the same time. I will fondly remember CS, I learned much from its pages when I was a geek newb.
The Hard Edge was the last valid reason to subscribe to Computer Shopper. When it went, I did. Salute!