A farewell to ink

One door closes; another opens. With this issue, InfoWorld pulls the plug on its print magazine. Starting today, all our news, reviews, columns, analyses, and first-person commentary — everything you’ve come to expect from InfoWorld in the past 29 years — will be published solely at InfoWorld.com.

So the issue you now hold in your hands — unless you’re reading this online — is something of a collector’s edition. In the history of magazine publishing, it’s practically unheard of to offer a magazine with the words “Final Print Issue” emblazoned on the cover. That’s because the folding of a magazine is typically a closely guarded secret … until after the fact.

Here’s how that process plays out. The magazine’s editorial staff, unaware of impending doom, produces an issue, just like they always do. As soon as they’ve shipped the last page to the printer, the publisher traipses in and announces the grim news. He commends everyone for their years of hard work, references the tough business climate, and lays everyone off. Thanks a lot, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Our situation is different. Because InfoWorld isn’t leaving, just changing its primary address, the editors had the opportunity to create this issue with full knowledge that it would be their last. That’s why we decided to scrap our standard Tech Watch coverage and focus instead on the forces — technological, economic, and behavioral — that make online-only publishing feasible, maybe even unavoidable (see “InfoWorld folds print after 29 years”).

We also indulged ourselves in a bit of nostalgia, with a brief time line of “InfoWorld through the years”, going all the way back to 1978, when the publication was called Intelligent Machines Journal.

But enough looking back; I’d prefer to talk about where we’re going than where we’ve been. In that vein, we’ll be rolling out a slew of new newsletters, blogs, site features, and live events in the coming months. You can keep abreast of all of them by signing up for my weekly “Letter from the Editor” newsletter, which launches next Monday, April 9. I have a bet with Robert X. Cringely that my newsletter will outdraw his (what was I thinking?), so any help is appreciated.

And I invite any of you who would like to discuss InfoWorld’s print-to-online transition to join me in IT Exec-Connect, our community/social network, for a live chat on April 12 at 11 a.m. PDT. I’ll be holding forth in the “Strategy” chat room. I’d love to hear what you think.