plouff@levers.dec.com (Wes Plouff) (02/22/89)
In a flame at Byte Magazine on January 16, Leo Schwab asked, >Is the action taken by BYTE consistent >with actions taken by balanced, relatively unbiased publications? Go up to Peterborough, N.H., home of those two magazines you love to hate, and look at the material in Byte's lobby. The advertising rate book talks about PCs... Macs... Decision Makers... i.e. the mythos of the world of Power Users. The magazine itself isn't quite that bad. My opinion, Byte's attitude toward Amiga: - Balanced? No. - Unbiased? Yes, something they try very hard at. - Inaccurate? Too often. - Uninterested? Mostly. Last fall (remember the Byte-bashing in this newsgroup then?) I realized that Byte had dropped too many wide-focus features, not just Amiga coverage. Not wanting just to bitch, I wrote a letter to Byte's publisher, J. Burt Totaro, complaining about the narrowing of focus even as the magazine branched out into other outlets such as its weekly newsletter. The letter said I owned a Different Brand of personal computer without mentioning the Amiga name. Totaro wrote back, in part... "First of all, BYTE had to change. It is not only a magazine, but also a business. If the right number of advertising pages is not sold, then there is no one to foot the bill to produce the kind of editorial matter you'd like to read. And as of April of last year [1987], the BYTE business was clearly in jeopardy." "Further, BYTE has changed to become better. The great body of polled readers that we've been able to contact over the past half year have, by a huge majority, voted in favor of the changes of 1987-1988." "And finally, BYTE has changed to secure its place among industry professionals as the most authoritative and technically relevant publication in the business. This reputation had been tarnished in recent years and, in the view of many, BYTE was becoming obsolescent." Totaro went on to say that he believed the changes in 1987-88 had improved the magazine and redefined, but not narrowed, its focus. All this begs the question of serving us, the people who own one of the personal computers outside the Dual Monarchy which has so captured the public and industry perception. I think that to get more Amiga focus in Byte, instead of occasional half-hearted mentions, three things have to happen, addressing Totaro's three points. First, Amiga product advertisers should be encouraged to run ads in Byte. Some of the big mail-order houses are starting to include Amiga products in their ads and inserts this year, and Manx has always mentioned all flavors of computer their tools run on. Second, let Byte's management know what you want. The above is a sample of one data point that shows polite and focused complaint letters are read and answered. Third, Amiga has to be shown to be valuable to "industry leaders" as a machine capable of real work. Write articles! The worst Byte can say to an article is "No, thanks." Reading this newsgroup, a few examples come to mind. There's enough expertise here to submit articles on low-cost newsletter publishing, adapting Amy for various grades of video production, Amiga OS as an incubator for OS/2 applications, integration of different vendors' products through AREXX for roll-your-own packages... Is this wishful thinking? Anyone care to post their rejection slips? I think Amiga coverage in Byte is worth having in order to spread recognition of the machine. Comments invited. -- Wes Plouff, Digital Equipment Corp, Littleton, Mass. plouff%levers.dec@decwrl.dec.com Amiga -- over 256,000,000,000 pixels sold.
hpchang@rose.waterloo.edu (Hsi P. Chang) (02/22/89)
In article plouff@levers.dec.com (Wes Plouff) writes: >Totaro wrote back, in part... > "And finally, BYTE has changed to secure its place among industry > professionals as the most authoritative and technically relevant > publication in the business. This reputation had been tarnished > in recent years and, in the view of many, BYTE was becoming > obsolescent." Since when are the IBM PC/clones are considered a high-tech machine ? If the "business" mentioned above is secretarial word-processing/spreadsheet, then by all means BYTE is the most "technically relevant" publication in that "business". >Totaro went on to say that he believed the changes in 1987-88 had >improved the magazine and redefined, but not narrowed, its focus. Yup. Like redefining the words "Amiga" and "Atari" to be dirty words. BYTE is a joke. I used to read it because it contained alot of stuff about other types of computers besides the biggies. I even remember when the CBM VIC-20 was reviewed by BYTE. But now, it's just one of many IBM PC magazines. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- hpchang@rose.waterloo.{edu,cdn} Hsi P. Chang hpchang@rose.uwaterloo.ca 3B Computer Science, Co-op. uunet!watmath!rose!hpchang University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada