Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!cs.umu.se!dvljhg From: dvljhg@cs.umu.se (J|rgen Holmberg) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Industry Publications Ignoring the Amiga. Message-ID: <1990Dec12.064751.22959@cs.umu.se> Date: 12 Dec 90 06:47:51 GMT References: Sender: news@cs.umu.se (News Administrator) Organization: Dep. of Info.Proc, Umea Univ., Sweden Lines: 77 In article WHE46@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) writes: > >In article <629@cbmger.UUCP> Peter Kittel GERMANY writes: > >>In article WHE46@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) writes: >>> one question >>>always pops into my mind: why should these magazines mention the >>>Amiga? >> >>Because there is also a competition between magazines. And one good >>argument for a magazine is that it shows COMPETENCE. If the magazine >>and its writers show that they know the state of the art then they >>are much better at comparing and judging. And to not mention the Amiga >>in articles about Multimedia simply shows the ignorance of the writer >>and the editors, they plainly DON'T KNOW what they write. >>THEY'RE DUMB. And you might conclude that such dumbness not only appears >>regarding coverage of the Amiga. I suspect that in such magazines also >>other very important topics are forgotten, because those dumb authors >>don't know about what is going on in real life. They are computer >>illiterate. >>So one should write them and give them a hint that they should improve >>their computer knowledge reasonably, because else they could be subject >>to lose competition in this market. > > I did not get my point across very well in the original message, so I >will restate it here. Magazines do not write for computers. Magazines >write for PEOPLE. The people that most computer industry publications in >the U.S. (such as InfoWorld, PC World, etc.) write for is the community >of people who use computers for professional purposes. > > Unfortunaly, Amiga users make up only a tiny fraction of that >community. Until this changes, these publications will continue to not >mention the Amiga in their articles. For all of the Amiga's capabilities, >it is not of most interest to 95% of the readers of these magazines. >These magazines, therefore, do not mention anything that is not of much >interest to their readers. > > All the bundled multimedia software in the world, and all the >multimedia capabilities in the world, will not make these publications >notice the Amiga. Amiga users need to become a noticeable percentage of >the community of professional computer users. Unfortunately, this has not >happened yet, and at the current rate that Commodore is selling >'professional' (non-A500) Amigas in the U.S., it likely never will. > There are several things in the above that makes me choke. The amiga has a large following among computer literate people. There is NO way you can make people who don't wish to learn about new concepts learn in just a few months. You have to work at it for years. Needless to say I consider computer journalists among the most reactionary people around. There is another thing also, the magazines don't write for people. They sell readers to advertisers. As long as the readers let them get away with paid misinformation they will continue to cover only paying customers. You mention that 95% of the readers aren't interested in the Amiga. I don't agree with that estimate but if it were true it is due to the magazine targetting the mac or ms-dos users to the exclusion of anything else. Lets compare different articles. When new and revolutionary software is released the article is of interest to a great many people beyond the primary group of would be buyers. When new hardware is released it appeals to a wider audience too. It is only run-of-the-mill type stuff that is of no interest to a wider audience. I can understand that magazines won't cover yet-another-WP for a small platform but not to review stuff like Real3D, Caligari Broadcast and similar products is a crime. This is true for more machines than the Amiga though. Why do you think professional equals non-500 systems. The A500 is technically superior to serious macs and pc-clones. I own an A500 and though I use it for games I would chose it any day over the mac for instance. ( better keyboard, faster utilities, multitasking etc. works just as well without expansion slots) Come to think of it I play more games on the Sun than on my amy at present. /Jorgen -- ******************************************************************************* email dvljhg@cs.umu.se - other ways to communicate are a waste of time. Everything I say is always true, just apply it to the right reality. "Credo, quia absurdum est."