Print Magazines vs. Online Magazines

[m]

Personaly I am looking forward to this new e-zine.I get sick of reading reviews that don't really test a knife or a gun, they just give a little fluff and end up helping to sell a product,intentionaly or not.I have broken a lot of knives and used some that would not take or hold a good edge and had numerous guns that refused to work, but have either read nothing bad about them or seen glowing reports in the magazines about them.I am not a "rich" person so these reviews are important to me and people like me. There are a few writers I trust, usually the ones you can tell have experience and actually use the equipment,but most I take with a grain of salt.When I go to buy a magazine,I look to see if the articles I am interested in are written by people I trust,I don't trust very many magazines enough as a whole to subscribe to them.The writer can be the most up and up guy in the world, but since the reader doesn't know the writer personaly,if the writer gets product from anywhere but a completely unbiased source,how can the writer expect the reader to know the review is unbiased?E-zines are not inherently any more reliable than magazines and you could have someone delete disenting posts on the forums that should keep them honest as has happened on other forums in the past,but that has not happened on these forums as far as I can tell and Jeff, Cliff, Mike and Spark as well as others have posted many true tests of gear here and let the chips fall where they may so I am realy looking forward to subscribing to this e-zine when I have the money.
m

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Hoodoo, no argument from me about the possibility of subjective elements causing a bias, it just doesn't have to be that way. I'll give you an example. About a year or so ago I was discussing khukuri handle ergonomics with a bando man. He didn't simply say "HI khukuris have good ergonomics". That would have been a pretty near useless statement, true but useless. What he did do was describe his chopping technique, his grip placement and how this effects impacts and fatigue. As well as noting his hand size and how to modify the grip so as to account for differences. We discussed this in enough detail that at the end of the conversation I understood enough to remove the subjective part and ponder how the ergonomics would be effected if I varied the conditions.

As for the beer, do you mean the one with the "floating widgit", that is a ping pong ball.

M :

E-zines are not inherently any more reliable than magazines

Yes, this is very true. However the online magazine is going to be open to much more immediate and open feedback which should act very strongly to avoid fluff promotion.

-Cliff

 

[Hoodoo]

Originally posted by Cliff Stamp:
What he did do was describe his chopping technique, his grip placement and how this effects impacts and fatigue. As well as noting his hand size and how to modify the grip so as to account for differences. We discussed this in enough detail that at the end of the conversation I understood enough to remove the subjective part and ponder how the ergonomics would be effected if I varied the conditions.

As for the beer, do you mean the one with the "floating widgit", that is a ping pong ball.

Cliff,
I'd love to see more of this kind of detail in magazine reviews. Once we got started on this, I looked back over a few issues of various knife magazines and noted that many of the reviews lacked much of the kind of in depth and personal discussion you are referring to. Some do, some don't--it's a mixed bag. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances. That's why I like BF. Lots of points of views which ultimately means you get a lot more information. But best of all, I get to "pick" the knife I want reviewed. I just start a thread stating "Whaddya think about the new XXXXXXX knife" and away she goes. Fun stuff eh? And then the experts like you come along and tell me its a POS.

Along the same line, looks like Mike is open to suggestions about what to put in his magazine so that adds to the versatility of the e-zine that would be difficult to duplicate in a print format.

Ping-pong ball? I've never opened the can so I don't really know what that thingy inside looks like. All I know is that it foams like a dog with rabies and makes a nice creamy head. It almost covers up the "can" taste.

------------------
Hoodoo

There's no fool like an old fool. You just can't beat experience.
D.O. Flynn

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Hoodoo, the only way to get the detail is to make it in demand. If Mike's online magazine is superior in this respect to the paper ones, and this is a valued element, then the subscription numbers will show it. One of the most promising aspects is that the online version allows almost immediate feedback, including with the writers so direct questions on performance can be asked.

-Cliff