Ask Slashdot: Does Europe Have Better Magazines Than the US? 562
An anonymous reader writes "Now that all the large chain book stores have disappeared from the landscape, I visited my local independent book store. In the basement I found a dazzling array of amazing magazines from the UK and Germany. Not only were the magazines impressive, they included CDs and DVDs of material. Nearly every subject was there: Knitting, Photography, Music, Linux, and Fitness. I snapped up a magazine called 'Computer Music,' which had a whole issue dedicated to making house music, including a disc of extra content. I subscribe to U.S. magazines like Wired, 2600, & Make, but their quality seems to ebb and flow from issue to issue and I don't ever recall a bonus disc. Are the UK magazines really better? If yes, why and which of them do you subscribe to? The other interesting thing about them is they weren't filled with tons of those annoying subscription cards. What is the best way to subscribe?"
EU Linux Mags Rock (Score:5, Informative)
EU Linux mags rock, especially the UK versions.
About twice as good, and twice as expensive. (Score:5, Informative)
Hadn't noticed before, but yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Future Publishing (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of the UK special interest magazines are by Future Publishing. A company with roots back to 8-bit magazines like Zzap64 and Crash. I think they're partly responsible for raising the game in the UK market.
The editorial staffs have lots of overlap. (Score:2, Informative)
Let's remember that in recent years there's a veritable cross-Atlantic shuttle of magazine staffers. After all, Time Out New York is an offshoot of a London company and was first built with staff from the European offices. Tina Brown continues to be a powerhouse on both sides and, of course, the Murdoch people get swapped back and forth like third string baseball players. And within the large production complexes, the editions of magazines like Time for dozens of different markets are mostly repackaged versions of the same pool of content.
That being the case, maybe the biggest question becomes what makes these media companies decide to sell Americans such a thin gruel of content out of the rich banquet of editorial that they have to choose from.
You want things to improve? Break Diamond and Ingram distribution, encourage businesses to buy targeted display ads in small magazines that appeal their precise demographics, and help independently owned bookstores to make a profit on magazines and small press creations.
Subscription price? (Score:4, Informative)
What about if you have a subscription?
Most US magazines are 1/4 of the price if you subscribe. Is it any cheaper to read these expensive UK magazines if you subscribe?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Informative)
My 15-bucks-a-month Internet subscription comes with a bonus from my ISP: a country-wide*, unlimited traffic, 3.6 Mbit/s 3G USB stick.
For free.
I used it more than once as back-up for my main connection and it rocks.
So yeah, you're not so far-fetched.
*Country-wide means wherever they provide coverage, for now limited to medium-sized and major cities but good enough for what I need.
Because of the cultural diversity? (Score:4, Informative)
EU has many more languages with a printing tradition than the US. Essentially USA is English with some influx from the myriad of minorities. EU has more than 30+ languages, each with a long and unique printing tradition. Because of the cultural diversity, and the slower pace with which ideas transfer cross the language barrier there is a greater diversity than in the printed monoculture of the US. Spanish Latin America is somewhat similar, yet more diverse than the US due to the fact that these are sovereign nations.
Still, this doesn't mean that UK magazines more readily borrows from the rest of Europe than American magazines do. So, I believe the number of EU languages has little to do with this, thinking of it again... :) [I didn't want to delete what I had just written, it _sounded_ nice...]
In fact, it has been my impression that American magazines have way more ads (sorry, way way more ads) but more readable content because the larger number of subscribers. Some monthly magazines have like 200+ pages, with perhaps 50% ads, which very few EU magazines have.
The reason is probably that the number of pan-US publishers has gone down, because of market forces. Dog-eat-dog. The headline "Because of the cultural diversity?" probably is misleading in one sense, but the governments in the EU tend to defend the small publishers using e.g. tax reductions, just to retain that headline cultural diversity, after all.
Re:The Economist (Score:5, Informative)
+5 Insightful, Informative. I'll add that it is also quite funny, if you enjoy that dry, British, Monty Python style. The English level may be intimidating for non-native speakers at first, but if you want to learn top-notch English, here is your benchmark. After reading this, everything else seems written at a Dr. Suess level.
Oh, and take a look at Viz as well, a satirical adult comic. Low humor for high brows.
Bonus discs (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I'm from Germany and can only describe the situation here, but "bonus" discs really are pretty standard for a long time now. Especially with computer and gaming magazines, although some have abandoned them for online content.
For example, Linux magazines often provide a disc with the software that is reported about in the magazine, and often they're also bootable (rescue systems, latest Debian, whatever) which comes in very handy in case you're system broke down and thus can't get online (happened to me once a few years ago). Other computer magazines' discs have demos, free software and drivers but I've also seen them provide movies (I have no idea why). Luckily the notorious AOL discs have vanished ;-) A noteworthy example of a really useful bonus disc is from the popular computer magazine c't: about once a year it provides Knoppicilin, now called Desinfec't which is a Linux Live-CD with content to fix your Windows system: it comes with a few virus scanners (latest version: the commercial scanners Avira, BitDefender, Kaspersky and the free ClamAV) and always support reading and writing NTFS partitions.
Gaming magazines also put these discs to good use as some of them put video reviews of games on their discs and that really is useful additional content as often two or three screenshots printed in a magazine just can't transport the experience of a game. Of course the PC targeted magazines also have game demos.
Re:Boobs in Newspaper Stands (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Total speculation on why (Score:5, Informative)
>a couple of thousand different cheeses
I hate to stop your wonderful support of my country, but cheeses wise we have about 3, and feck the rest from France :o)
Whaddya mean?!
We have Cheddar, Scottish cheddar, Scottish Highland cheddar, Scottish Island cheddar, Welsh cheddar, cheddar from other places ... we'll even claim Canadian cheddar as our own if you give us half a chance!
Oh, and more seriously: Cheshire, Shropshire, Wensleydale, Stilton, Caerphilly, Y-fenwi, Yarg, and of course Brie (most of which is made in Somerset).
If the French banned export of cheese tomorrow, I confess I'd miss Roquefort. Other than that, they can keep em! :)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's funny to joke that British food is bad, but that's a totally outdated view It's based on what happened to British food when the country went bust after WW2. It's easy to forget that while the 50s were a time of rising prosperity and living standards in the US, the UK still had rationing, and living standards barely above what they were at the end of the war. Nowadays the UK has some of the world's best restaurants. (e.g. see The World's Best Restaurants [theworlds50best.com], and compare the number of UK and US restaurants, adjusting for population). The British are obsessed with home cooking too: just look at the number of TV cooking shows that it exports. This may not always translate to great home cooking, but it does illustrate that the terrible food of the 70s is a thing of the past. Except in Scotland, that is, unless you consider deep-fried pizza to be good food. Actually, on second thoughts..
Re:c't (Score:3, Informative)
I think c'T is the closest thing resembling Byte magazine at its peak.
Used to subscribe to it when I lived in Sweden (both to keep my german language reading skills fresh and to enjoy the articles that tended to go into fascinating depth). Nowadays I tend to pick the latest copy whenever I pass through a german airport.
It's also a steal at 3.90 EUR for 200+ pages. And it's bi-weekly, not monthly. :)
Re:EU Linux Mags Rock (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Boobs in Newspaper Stands (Score:4, Informative)
Those were just banned in Germany, which is a small part of Europe.