Well, I have been not so much vocal but textual in my criticism of climbing magazines. Often each new month brings about more disappointment. However I just saw an advert saying that CLIMB have gone fully online, so I rocked over there for a look. Whilst i can’t really say there is an improvement in content, as it is still the same old content. I do like the forward thinking idea of having an interweb based option. In fact I really like it, in the words of neil dickinsons ‘its got legs’.
I am sure I have seen other magazines in this format before, just not climbing ones? (might be wrong there though!) What it seems to offer is a the opportunity for hyperlinking the adverts which must be beneficial for both us the reader, the publisher and the company advertising, as we can get straight to more info on a product and they can count the click through rate.
Whilst I am not convinced that a replica of there magazine what is required, it is a great improvement. My honest thought is that there might be a better way to display and allow users to browse the articles. I don’t know how these things work but some form of content management system, whereby you can search for articles by author, title, geographic area, would be a superb way of ‘archiving’ the old back issues, although I appreciate that generating a PDF file of each double page will be a lot easier.
With this and the back issues of the Mountain Info online at the CLIMB homepage it seems like they are stepping forward from Climber Magazine in there moves to future proof there business, by embracing the internet. All I ask is please don’t get a forum!
I wonder who the new boss at climber will be and whether they will follow suit?