Forums | MacLife

Yeah I was a little irritated by the huge advertisement special as well.  Made the mag feel thick and full of content when I received it.  Huge dissapointment when I found out what really made up all that weight.

Donkey Butter wrote:

what about the 2 page advert for the sony vaio notebook.

thankfully december was my last issue.

What?
Scan, pls.

Whoever thought up the idea of making an ad look like a magazine article needs a good swift kick in the crotch.  I was also pissed when I discovered the "Special Advertising Section".  Note to all ad agencies:  If your ad pisses me off, I will go out of my way never to buy anything from you.  Its things like this that reaffirm my decision to let the subscription expire.

Notice that the magazine staff haven't chimed in on these comments.

this 30 page ad for at&t the vaio ad, makes me wonder if they don't also pander to other sponsors when it comes to reviews. perhaps if olympus had given them a little bit more money they would have gotten a 5/5 instead of the 4/5 for their cameras.

mac|life just lost all credibility.

the ads are in the magazine. that means we can fault the magazine for them.

perhaps we can't fault the editorial staff for the ads but we most certainly can fault the magazine for it's contents.

I'm an MBA student, which gives me some tolerance for the facts of business life: you want to produce a magazine with lots of shiny pictures, you've got to sell a lot of ads.

But let me say this: I hope this sell-out gives you enough cash to last for a while. Most of your customers, myself included, won't tolerate half of the magazine being devoted to ads that have zero relevance. There isn't a single mention or picture of the iPhone -- the one AT&T product that might be even slightly interesting.

Bottom line: if you're that desperate, a bake sale would be a better choice. I'd buy a Mac Brownie....

Are you guys smurfing kidding me??? You are actually complaining about the ads in the magazine??? Do you buy the magazine for the ads? I simply don't understand this.

And to those of you (like me) who subscribe, exactly how do you think they can afford to sell and mail you a years worth of magazines for less than $2 each???

1) More magazine subscribers = ability to sell more ads (hence lower subscription cost vs. newsstand)
2) Ads pay for the majority of the magazine, not subscription cost. I would venture to guess that the subscription cost barely (maybe not even) covers the cost of printing and mailing the magazine to you. So unless you want blank pages mailed you need ads.
3) The more ads you can sell the more editorial content your magazine can contain.

Frank

frankly wrote:

...
3) The more ads you can sell the more editorial content your magazine can contain.

Frank

Yea thats true but there has actually been considerably less editorial content in Mac|Life than it was in MacAddict. Articles are shorter and almost no more diy's. Then there's these featurelike ads that you can read ones or twice before you realize that it's actually an ad.

Orion wrote:

frankly wrote:

Are you guys smurfing kidding me??? You are actually complaining about the ads in the magazine??? Do you buy the magazine for the ads? I simply don't understand this.

And to those of you (like me) who subscribe, exactly how do you think they can afford to sell and mail you a years worth of magazines for less than $2 each???

1) More magazine subscribers = ability to sell more ads (hence lower subscription cost vs. newsstand)
2) Ads pay for the majority of the magazine, not subscription cost. I would venture to guess that the subscription cost barely (maybe not even) covers the cost of printing and mailing the magazine to you. So unless you want blank pages mailed you need ads.
3) The more ads you can sell the more editorial content your magazine can contain.

Frank

Yes, that is true, but perhaps they could solicit advertising that actually goes with the theme of the magazine.  I don't want to be reading a magazine for Farmall collectors and suddenly be bombarded with ads for John Deere any more than seeing PC ads in a Mac magazine or cell phone ads that don't even show the iPhone.  I may not read the ads, but they are still thrown in front of my face whether I like it or not.  Those damn ads that look like articles really piss me off because unless you happen to scan the top of every page, its sometimes hard to tell that they are a "Special Advertising Section".  I don't want to waste my time with them, but they try to trick you into reading them.

They are ads, not content. When you watch tv do you think to yourself, boy I wish they had more commercials for things I want to buy or do you think, man I wish they had less commercials??? This is one of the reasons TiVo is so popular, because people want to fast forward over the commercials. I just don't get your comment. Skip over the ads. I could see if they were taking ads from companies that were known to burn people's houses down or something like that. But you are mad because they have ads for things that you aren't interested in??? That is weak.

I will agree that the ads that are made to look like articles are a bit annoying.

Frank

Egidio wrote:

Gunnyman wrote:

http://myskitch.com/gunnyman/photo_28-2 … 074104.jpg

Things must be getting rough in the "windoze" business.  Don't we have enough Mac products to be advertised?   Must we go so low?   LOL

If a manufacturer (in this case Sony) has enough money to advertise in non-windows magazines wouldn't that mean they are probably doing pretty good? Or are you saying that anyone that stoops to the level of advertising in Mac|Life must be in bad shape? Doesn't seem to work either way.

Frank

frankly wrote:

Egidio wrote:

Gunnyman wrote:

http://myskitch.com/gunnyman/photo_28-2 … 074104.jpg

Things must be getting rough in the "windoze" business.  Don't we have enough Mac products to be advertised?   Must we go so low?   LOL

If a manufacturer (in this case Sony) has enough money to advertise in non-windows magazines wouldn't that mean they are probably doing pretty good? Or are you saying that anyone that stoops to the level of advertising in Mac|Life must be in bad shape? Doesn't seem to work either way.

Frank

while I can't speak for edidio, the way I read their comment was that mac|life was stooping low to place a sony/windows ad in their "Mac" magazine.

to me it is the selling out that mac life is doing running ads like these. like as long as they are getting paid they will run an ad for anything. including a 30 page non mac related advert.