| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
jbauer
Joined: 22 Jul 1991
Posts: 6
|
 Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 1:31 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| thombiz wrote: | The suspension of publication of Windsurfing Magazine makes one wonder what the real state of the sport is in the US. If Windsurfing Magazine is pulling out of the game, things must be bad.....so what is the un-whitewashed state of the sport. Here are some facts which only today were brought to my attention. Resent research shows there are more windsurfers in France than there are in the US. There are more windsurfers in Germany than there are in the US. Windsurfing in the other parts of the world is doing fine, but here in the US, nada. Hell, even here in fantasticly windy Corpus Christi, the windsurfing club "CCWA" has all but disappeared. It no longer has a Commodore, there are no executive meetings being held, there are no functions being planned and held, not even a Xmas party.
Windsurfing Magazine seemed to always be saying, ... windsurfing in the US is doing great. Is this the way it ends? |
It's because people in the U.S. are LAZY!!! That's why its bigger in Europe. The good news is more and more Europeans are moving to the U.S. so that should keep the sport alive. I'm from NJ and we just started a windsurfing club called the NJWWA. Check us out online, we have about 50 members now. We do 4 learn to windsurf clinics a year to help get people excited about the sport. Hopefully Josh Sapiero will start a website, that's the better way to go anyway with great shots and videos. I highly recommend everyone get the 1st Windsurfing movie video, Levi Siver's part in it is amazing and gets me so stoked, hope it gets you stoked too!!!
Barbara Bauer from NJ |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
gcmigliaccio
Joined: 01 May 2010
Posts: 6
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 2:18 pm Post subject: WS Magazine is Out:( Let's think positive - What Next? |
|
|
This thread is an obituary!!! If this is the mood, no wonder the sport is declining in the U.S.
Let's try to think positive. WS Mag did not work out with a traditional publisher. How can the sport keep (and most important, improve) his journalistic venue?
A few ideas (hoping they make Josh returns from his mountain retreat):
I have a 3 year subscription to the magazine (2 year left). The publisher is supposed to refund me (and I will not accept a replacement subscription). I am willing to re-invest my left-over budget and double it as long as the current publisher will leave the magazine legacy alive and pass it along. Would current WS Mag staff (Josh+?) be willing to re-invent a journalistic venue for the current (and especially future) sport enthusiasts?
Take my budget left-over and count on my double-budget pledge to create an online venue that would overcome current limitations.
Gear tests are good, but they don't justify an annual subscription and need to be integrated with other information. Make it a mobile friendly portal with gadgets (regional subscriptions to wind reporting/forecasting networks - windalert?), add regional magazine sections with clubs and groups contributing with information and updates on local events, activities (learn to windsurf events), races (Miami's i-to-i, Seattle's Winduro, etc.), and selected articles from sector's influential blogs (danewsblog.blogspot.com, http://jimbodouglass.blogspot.com/, etc.).
The result would be a sport's portal where to find general information on current (and less recent) gear, gear repairs, and more important, ACTIVITIES in each region. Therefore, make it less about gear and more about windsurfing activities (and advertising-I am fine with ads but let me read something and not only about new gear).
Anyone else is joining my pledge?
Josh: do you see this as something you would be interested in?
GT |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
keycocker
Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 2:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Magazines depend on advertising revenue and that depends on a healthy market for the products. The makers of gear are going out of business and bringing the mags down with them.
The ad revenue is also leaving for the internet.
Newspapers are going next. Many have closed and even the New York Times had to ask its people to take a cut to keep the doors open.
Sales of books are dropping away and soon may no longer be published.
Major bookstore chains are history. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 3:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
No doubt, Windsurfing Magazine's sudden demise is sobering, and one has to wonder whether it's an indicator of sorts that windsurfing as a sport is in question. I sincerely hope not, but that's really more up to us, the community of folks that do it.
With this news though, I have to wonder Bonnier's Kiting Magazine will continue to live on. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
damel
Joined: 15 Jul 2007
Posts: 247
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 4:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Bummer, I heard they were having trouble getting enough subscriptions and got my brother and a few others subscriptions for Christmas. Hoped it would help them out a bit but I guess it wasn't enough. Wish I found out a little earlier.
_________________
_____/)_____
http://east-of-maui.blogspot.com/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jingebritsen
Joined: 21 Aug 2002
Posts: 3371
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 5:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
kiting's been cancelled too.
as magazines become less viable, should magazine companies continue to sell their advertising as usual? shouldn't they change before they completely disintegrate? in the case of bonnier, what's the difference in demo's in all or part of their bevy of books vs outside mag? should they offer a package deal that incorporates all the mag's? some of them? what do smaller mag's have as their advantages? how many of us are strictly windsurfing? strictly boats? mountain bikes? surfing? SUP? where's the money spent in advert's? who spends it? pizza, beer insurance, lawyering and cars. some would apply, some not. we certainly go out of our way to ignore them when we don't want to hear it.
_________________
www.aerotechsails.com
www.exocet-original.com
www.iwindsurf.com
http://www.epicgearusa.com/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 6:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| U2U2U2 wrote: | 1. The fact that some of your first thoughts is 'wheres my money ?' whilst people are losing their jobs is disgusting.
2. I would think you will be offered another magazine for your subscription duration
3. or a refund.
4. the tests while sometimes inconclusive, aren't they all ? were entertaining at least. |
1. I don't think it's fair or justified to declare Joethewindsurfa’s (get it … as in Joe The Plumber?) concerns -- or by association Joe himself -- "disgusting". I -- and another couple of hundred million Americans -- support his priorities. I think strong insinuations warrant a stout defense. Here are a few reasons why we think he’s on the right track, and most certainly not disgusting.
• Individuals know they can almost never strongly influence big issues like the economy personally; their best shot at that is voting with their feet, their money, and their ballots. Those votes, if freely given and honestly weighed, collectively steer the big issues towards some consensus. Joe’s "Where's my money?" IS such a vote, just as his "Here's my money" was when he submitted his subscription order.
• We’re more motivated by factors close to home. My Mom's "Eat your peas; kids in China are starving" meant nothing to me, but her "Eat your peas or you won't get any dessert" got my peas down the hatch pretty quickly (the quicker the better). Threats, incentives, and votes mean the most and work best when up close and personal.
• Even more important on a national scale is that the concept of subverting our own needs to those of the collective has been proven in Communist nations around the globe to fail. (Anyone who thinks I’m the one turning U2’s comments into politics failed to understand where his comment came from and failed to recognize its implications to Joethewindsurfa.)
• Our charity donations should be awarded directly and voluntarily, not via corporate largess with customers’ money. In fact, the farther towards the Nanny State this country moves, the less I give to charity. Duplication of effort and funds is wasteful.
• We should reward success, not failure, and nobody OWES a nickel they earned honestly to anyone else who chose to try to make a living in a niche industry.
• The person in the best position and with the greatest motivation to solve an individual’s problems most quickly is that individual. Even legitimate victims usually share some responsibility in their problem and a great deal of responsibility in its solution.
• Joe did his part already in fulfillng his side of the contract. It is now the business’s legal and moral responsibility to fulfill its side. The minute those principles are allowed to collapse out of pity for some individuals is the minute a nation of laws falls off the edge of credibility and deserves to be replaced by a rising, instead of collapsing, nation.
2. That’s like a waiter serving rutabagas and liver because the kitchen ran out of the prime rib and truffles you ordered … at the same price. Most people don’t just “Read a magazine”; they read about a carefully chosen subject.
3. A business which can’t or won’t pay its contracted writers is unlikely to have funds to refund subscription costs. Most would pay off the contracted help first, as they’re higher up the obligation list. Businesses that go belly up with the reserve to pay off all their debts are unusual and to be highly commended.
Besides, that’s one reason publishing conglomerates compartmentalize their individual magazines; it isolates the parent company from liability when a publication’s niche ceases to earn its keep. If sufficiently diverse and well-run, the parent corp just reassigns the staff of the declining niche to a new niche, declares the old mag defunct, creates a new magazine title, and shifts gears. Just because WSMag is replaced by Popular Plowing and testing is now done in Iowa rather than Maui doesn’t mean jobs end or anyone deserves charity or pity.
4. My sole interest in equipment reviews is information; I can think of at least 100 better forms of entertainment. I tried to write the hundreds of WSing equipment magazine tests I published in an entertaining way (e.g., “This board’s limp footstraps resembled gym socks nailed to the deck” and “Stepping onto a Bailey 8-6 is as comfortable as slipping into a pair of warm silk Jockey shorts fresh out of the dryer”) to interest readers, but “conclusions” aren’t realistic because they’re too personal. Only the user can draw valid conclusions. I’ve batted at least 0.900 buying boards based on magazine reviews, including those of WSMag … but only because I’m looking for insightful but objective comments, not subjective “conclusions”. Neither an individual tester nor a whole test team has any basis on which to “conclude” what board or sail or wetsuit an individual buyer will love. Buyers want testers’ and editors’ performance impressions, not their decisions. One man’s treasure is another’s dog, but both men understand “This board
is exceptionally [pick a performance factor]”. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ohmiteyliz
Joined: 04 Jul 2005
Posts: 11
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 6:25 pm Post subject: no more Windsurfing mag?? :( |
|
|
| Very sad to hear that Josh. Perhaps a resurrection will happen somewhere down the road. Best of luck Dude! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Windnc
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 85
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 8:06 pm Post subject: Windsurfing Magazine to Suspend Publication |
|
|
Perhaps we need to go to an American version of an online magazine like "Boardseeker". See: "www.boardseekermag.com/home.php"
It comes regularly to your email and contains a lot of good content. Although not as much covered in each issue like Windsurfing magazine, its increased frequency of publication makes up for it with new info, board tests, news, etc. each time. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kmarriott
Joined: 28 Jun 2008
Posts: 12
Location: Denver, CO
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 8:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Windsurfing mag in its print form will be missed for sure. But i wanted to let US Windsurfing members know that as you renew your US Windsurfing membership (which has always come with a subscription to Windsurfing Mag) you will receive a subscription to Windsport. So....you will still get a print magazine in your mailbox with windsurfing content!
Karen Marriott
US Windsurfing (among other things) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You can attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
|
|
Search
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Register
