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Over the professions, journalism is not known for its stability. The last half of January only highlighted this aspect, with dramatic layoffs in several leading digital publications including Vice, Buzzfeed News and Huffington Post. But buried under a pile of pink leaflets and P45 was a rare case of good news.
The business wing of the Raspberry Pi Foundation today announced the acquisition of two specialist magazines in the print media, formerly owned by British publishing house Dennis Publishing, namely Custom PC and Digital SLR Photography.
It's exciting, is not it? Https: //t.co/U48lKEiKf9
– Raspberry Pi (@Raspberry_Pi) February 1, 2019
You read correctly. Impression.
This move has no doubt saved these publications from the cutblock. In the last ten years, the struggling printed wing of technology journalism has been trapped in death with the loss of several iconic titles, including PC Zone, MacUser and Computer and Video Games.
Although Dennis Publishing's director, John Grewal, said that the aforementioned titles had raised £ 4.2 million (US $ 5.5 million) to their parent company over the last decade, they were not doing so. part of his "new strategy". Dennis also wants to sell the website. Know your mobile, although this is not considered part of the Raspberry Pi case.
Journalists specializing in technology – in fact, all journalists – tend to look at change with a worried eye. Acquisitions are often used as an excuse to take aggressive cost-cutting measures, with seasoned and loyal writers being fired and replaced by cheaper freelancers. But in reality, there is room for hope here. For starters, the Raspberry Pi team believes that there is a long-term prospect of success in the printing business. In recent years, she has quietly built a portfolio of securities under her arm Raspberry Pi Press. You can affirm that today, the Raspberry Pi project is as much a publisher as a computer manufacturer.
In 2015, he acquired the Raspberry Pi The MagPi fanzine and developed it discreetly to become a record publication for the community. Raspberry Pi Press also owns Wireframe, a developer-focused game publication, and Hackspace Magazine, which targets the builder community.
If I were working for Custom PC, I would be happy if this project was taken over by someone with a long-term vision of the sector, rather than a private equity firm seeking to make quick money.
Finally, there is a tremendous synergy between the Raspberry Pi project and the publications it has acquired.
Take custom PC, for example. Although you can not modify the RAM or processor of a Raspberry Pi computer, there are other ways (probably more significant) to customize it, thanks to its built-in GPIO ports. For example, you can turn it into a poor man's TiVO by tying the Raspberry Pi TV hat.
As far as digital SLR photography is concerned, again, there are obvious synergies. The Raspberry Pi computer is the basis of many photographic projects. You can use it to control the camera itself or to power up accessories such as sliders, so you can take great panoramic pictures.
To be clear, I do not think for a second that the Raspberry Pi press will turn these publications into advertorials. I think for the most part, things will stay as usual.
So wait. What is happening?
It's rare to see a technology publication become so intimately linked to a technology company – although I note that the Raspberry Pi project, with a nonprofit foundation in its center, is not exactly what you would consider as a traditional technology company. . Technical journalists cover businesses; they rarely work for them. This may be because there are a lot of problems between the Fourth Estate and the technology sector. Part of the problem is that the publications are competing with Google and Facebook for the same deposit of declining advertising money, and they are currently losing.
There is also the fact that many publications feel badly done, especially since Facebook is involved. Websites and blogs live at the mercy of Facebook's ranking algorithm, and traffic from the world's largest social networking site nearly ran out of steam in 2016 after significant changes. Another problem is that many publications feel misled by Mark Zuckerberg, after exaggerating the revenues and the traffic potential of social video, forcing the sites to continue the financially ruinous tactic of rotating the video. But if you look beyond that, it is clear that the technology sector (and, perhaps more accurately, technology leaders) recognizes the value of written content and invests heavily in it.
The most interesting example is Stripe, which has a publishing house specializing in books offering deep, often philosophical, perspectives on economics and technology. Since its launch in July 2018, Stripe Press has published four titles and two more to be released soon.
Another good example is the iconic Time Magazine, acquired last year by Marc Benioff – the deep-rooted philanthropist founder of Salesforce.. And of course, there is the Washington Post, which belongs to the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos.
And if we focus only on technology-related content, you can also mention Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn and therefore Lynda.com.
What happens next?
Although the Internet has made it easier than ever to become a publisher. From in-depth journalism to opinions, from contemplative reflections to makeup tutorials, if you have an idea, you can share it with an audience of millions or even billions.
But even so, making the numbers work remains an elusive challenge. Finding a scalable, predictable and repeatable revenue model seems impossible for all but the largest publishers. The acquisition and training of publications by technology tycoons and companies should not be considered as a potential lifeline for this industry in difficulty.
This is also true for traditional print publications, which have struggled in recent years. In the case of the Custom PC and Digital SLR Photography magazines, the acquisition by the Raspberry Pi project could bring a new infusion of money, creativity and above all, expose them to a new generation of developers and creators who could not -be never bought software. magazine before.
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