"Maker Media Inc ceased operations this week and let go of all of its employees — about 22 employees" founder and CEO Dale Dougherty told TechCrunch. "I started this 15 years ago and it's always been a struggle as a business to make this work. Print publishing is not a great business for anybody, but it works...barely. Events are hard . . . there was a drop off in corporate sponsorship." Microsoft and Autodesk failed to sponsor this year's flagship Bay Area Maker Faire.
But Dougherty is still desperately trying to resuscitate the company in some capacity, if only to keep MAKE:'s online archive running and continue allowing third-party organizers to license the Maker Faire name to throw affiliated events. Rather than bankruptcy, Maker Media is working through an alternative Assignment for Benefit of Creditors process.
"We're trying to keep the servers running" Dougherty tells me. "I hope to be able to get control of the assets of the company and restart it. We're not necessarily going to do everything we did in the past but I'm committed to keeping the print magazine going and the Maker Faire licensing program." The fate of those hopes will depend on negotiations with banks and financiers over the next few weeks. For now the sites remain online.
LINK:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/07/make-magazine-maker-media-layoffs/
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 09 2019, @03:58AM (2 children)
How woke were they before organizational death?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday June 09 2019, @04:52AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday June 10 2019, @06:42AM
https://makermedia.com/our-team/ looks to me more white if anything than one might expect an unbiased cross-section of the US might be. Females may be well represented, but they mostly are in roles that traditionally have good female representation - customer/media/partner relations, art/marketting, etc.. The website seems to engage in no pandering to any named minorities, nor even to mention that the concepts of minorities are even important to them.
Your "get woke go broke" riff in this context seems like nothing but a shit-stirring troll.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by EJ on Sunday June 09 2019, @11:06AM (21 children)
What sucks is that I bought a four-year subscription in March of 2017. I guess that money is gone. At least I still got the issues that came for less than the newsstand price.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday June 09 2019, @11:37AM (20 children)
Everything you could possibly want to know, DIY project-wise, is probably on random websites (hackaday), forums, and YouTube.
Apparently they want to keep the print magazine going:
It seems like they could still continue if they just run a website, post Hackaday junk on it, and license the name. Ditch the print magazine, maybe sell books if that's profitable, and cut almost all employees. Alternatively, sell the company to some vulture who will do that stuff.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday June 09 2019, @01:01PM
The irony of a legacy method of disseminating DIY solutions collapsing in the face of DIY solutions to information dissemination is sort of obvious -- the desire to stay the course if at all possible, seems like a pipe dream though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by EJ on Sunday June 09 2019, @08:06PM (18 children)
That's not the point of a magazine. A magazine is for providing curated information. There is something visceral about holding a physical magazine in my hands that I can't get from a computer or tablet. I can't stand reading a book on a tablet. I prefer holding the real thing.
If I'm looking for something specific, then it's perfectly fine to go to Google. A magazine is about showing me ideas I never thought about. It's not so much that I'm disappointed in losing access to the magazine. It's that I tried to support them by purchasing a subscription, and I may have gotten burned. We're really just talking about the price of a single pizza, so I'll get over it.
(Score: 2) by TrentDavey on Sunday June 09 2019, @09:10PM (3 children)
This. I love the printed magazine. It presents me with ideas and projects I would never search for since I wouldn't have thought they were possible or even existed. It is uplifting to see the breadth of creativity people have. It's kind of like looking for a particular book in an old-timey library where you can see and browse the books close to what you're interested in but never thought to seek out
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 10 2019, @12:41AM (2 children)
And a website can't be curated info because why? Aren't you on a site that curates info? Hell, we even have sports section if you consider the recent dodgeball article.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Monday June 10 2019, @02:19AM (1 child)
This website is for wasting time. I don't expect anything posted in the last week to survive into the next year. I don't even expect it to be relevant either.
If not for other sites creating the stories, this site would have no content. I don't come here to find out how to do something or find out something to do.
This site (as most everything else on the internet) is for disposable entertainment. That's not why I buy magazines. I only purchase print media that I intend to keep for future reference.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday June 10 2019, @10:57AM
Keep? In non-electronic form? You 20th Century dinosaur!
Reference material?
Curated content?
Next you'll be telling us how great libraries are!
Print mgazines are about the crossover of facts, opinions and options.
You can get stats on different pcbs, or cars, or planes or whatever from the web.
You an get 5,000 opinions on what is the best size, stud pattern, or model.
What you can't get (ever?), is descriptions of *why* someone made a particular choice, or their motivations and inspirations, together with the details about what they did, how they did it..
This is where enthusiast magazines exist. Alas, not every enthusiast of every topic haas the money or time to buy every magazine, and some topics have more expenses.
knitting, [buysubscriptions.com] anyone?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 09 2019, @09:59PM (7 children)
Curated info in magazine style can be done digitally, and for free. Or digitally for a charge, if you want (a chance at) higher quality.
As for the physical aspect, eventually someone will makerhack a flat, foldable dumb terminal color e-ink display. And it will be glorious.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EJ on Sunday June 09 2019, @11:33PM (6 children)
Nope. It's paper or GTFO. E-ink is garbage. I can't stand it. The batteries have never once run out on my paper magazines.
Digital stuff has BS DRM, and is not future-proof. I can pull out a copy of a magazine I bought 25 years ago, and it works just fine today as it did when I bought it. The same cannot be said for digital media. Digital media has a habit of disappearing when the company you "rented" it from decides to stop supporting it or simply goes out of business.
You can enjoy your digital media all you want, but I'll stick to hard copies.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 10 2019, @12:01AM (1 child)
Is e-ink "garbage" because of limited battery life or are there some other reasons? I am speculating about a future version of e-ink which could have better properties. DPI has increased, refresh rates have increased, and there will eventually be color. That limited battery life doesn't matter if it lasts for weeks and can be recharged fast. Add wireless charging support and then it would be a matter of laying the device down in the right place when you're done using it.
DRM doesn't matter to me at all because I can get reams of ripped content without paying. I don't even need to think about DRM.
At the end of the day, your hard copies will take up multiple shelves, boxes, etc. while an entire library of content can fit on a microSD card.
To each their own, but let's not entirely forget the advantages of digital.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @01:57AM
There is a bit of aesthetics as well as tactile satisfaction, like streamed tunes on thumb driver vs vinyl records with the sleeve artwork.
But it's more than that. Bound paper books are still a superior technology to ebook readers. You can thump through pages, open up at 2/3 of way out, say, just by using your finger tip, without having press all them buttons with no other visual/tactical cues. About the only advantage ebook readers offer is reduction of volume - can carry many volumes in small form factor. That is important in some applications, like shop manuals and traveling, but for others, ebook reader to paper book is like masturbation to sex.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @01:39AM (3 children)
How long ago did you check out e-ink? The early stuff was pretty ordinary, but recent screens are as good to read as 300dpi laser print.
Next time you've got a few minutes to waste in the appropriate store ask to have a look at one of the flagship models - Amazon's Kindle Oasis, or Kobo's Aura One.
Due to aging eyes and not liking glasses my reading time had dropped to almost zero, but has gone back up to historical levels since I got an Aura One. Bump the font size one or two points and suddenly reading is comfortable again.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Monday June 10 2019, @02:13AM (2 children)
DRM
Storage capacity
Batteries
Ease of use
No need to transfer to a new device
I don't lose my entire collection when the publisher goes under
Digital media will be the end of our culture. Thousands of years from now, people may wonder what we were like because there will be no physical records of our existence. Maybe someone will dig up an old Kindle from under some rubble, but it won't do anything. We can read parchments from thousands of years ago. We're going to leave nothing behind for the future.
If you don't like physical books, then we don't need to have this discussion because you just won't get it. It's like me trying to explain the joys of a well-cooked steak to a vegan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @02:50AM (1 child)
I do like books. My personal library has about four thousand physical books.
I got the Kobo Aura One because it reads almost anything, holds thousands of books, is waterproof (6' depth, 60 minutes) and is easy to read and light to carry. Combine it with Calibre to strip DRM and convert, and nobody is taking my digital books. It is not a replacement for physical books, but it is a very welcome counterpart. I take it nearly everywhere, and am never stuck waiting and bored. It lasts days to weeks on a charge, depending on backlight usage, and I usually have a small powerbank in my bag. It will recharge it several times. I've had the e-book for two years, and haven't had to transfer books to a new device yet. When I do, it will be a matter of plugging it into the PC and telling Calibre to do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @03:18AM
Yeah, but that's a lot of work stripping out DRM, backing up and all that. As opposed to physical books, that you buy, stick into a bookcase, and that's that.
True, you need space and maintenance (storage space, don't get it wet, etc.), but it's so much easier to forget maintenance when it's a some file on microscopic storage devices.
Also, physical bound book is still a superior technology.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 10 2019, @12:38AM (5 children)
Wait till you need three different pairs of glasses there sonny. For me, a magazine is an exercise in finding just the right squint and just the right eye to page distance. Yeah, I know, I'm an anecdote. Get off my lawn anyway.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Monday June 10 2019, @02:15AM (4 children)
Nope. Won't happen. I'm nearsighted. I specifically rejected that silly eye surgery nonsense. I have a single pair of glasses just like my 70+ father.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @02:56AM
WOW, you're lucky! A 70+ father. He must have a lot of enchantments on him and be one hell of a dad.
Most people only get a bog-standard father, +1 or +2. Some poor buggers even get a cursed -1 or -2 one.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 10 2019, @04:08AM (2 children)
Also nearsighted and no surgery. You're lucky to need only one pair of glasses. I have pairs for 18" or less, 18" to 20', and 20' to infinity.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @04:44AM
Sadly, I did get the surgery. Been regretting it for a decade now. Sure, I can see 20/20, so couldn't sue. But 20/20 only means I can figure out what the letter is at 20 feet. It doesn't mean I see it clearly. I see double, in each eye by itself. It's frequency dependent. Greens are the worst. Red is clear. Look up at night and see three moons (One bright, two ghostly) The left eye sees a left shifted double, the right eye sees a down shifted double.
As for glasses, I see just fine for driving (except for the weird multiple green lights, that is.) But need one set of glasses for reading, another set for computer work. They wanted to fix one eye for reading and leave the other one for driving, but hell no.
Glasses can't fix the double vision.
I have the kindle. It's ok. I prefer to read using my laptop (Calibre, with DRM busting tools), where I have finer controls over the font, brightness and contrast. But honestly, actual paper books are best. Post-it tab placeholders, notes in the margins, dog-eared corners, then leave behind for my kids to discover. Can't do that on my electo-fancy doohickies.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EJ on Monday June 10 2019, @07:22AM
My glasses work about 2' to infinity. My eyes work fine to about 24" though I can see reasonably well enough to identify people 10' away.
I can still see very well up close without my glasses even in my 40s. My mother is so mad because she used to be like me until she had her cataract surgery and they "fixed" her vision. Now she has perfect 20/20 or better at a distance, but needs reading glasses. Most of her day is spent reading books or using her tablet. She said she would rather they had put in "nearsighted" lenses when they fixed her cataracts.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday June 10 2019, @11:59AM
... but for me, they never progressed from simple, introductory articles like "here's how to hook up an LED". They presented simple, self-contained 'projects' that didn't instruct. I wish they'd had a better grip on teaching the basics instead of just presenting completed hacks and instructions on how to repeat it without learning how or why.
(Score: 1) by CheesyMoo on Monday June 10 2019, @03:57PM
Okay so print media is dead (or dying, if you insist) and corporate sponsors didn't help out at the Faire this year.
My question is, how much of this is market forces versus how much would be incompetence by the company?
I have been following MAKE nearly since its beginning, and I volunteered at the Maker Faire in San Mateo this year. There was no shortage of vendors, attendees (LOTS of parents with children) or skilled volunteers even with all the rain. It seems to me there is enough interest in this to make it a viable business, perhaps the old model doesn't work, fair enough, but this seems a bit dramatic, no? It doesn't sound like Dougherty wants to give up either, I find this a bit surprising is all.
Some other random thoughts:
-"Makers"/hobbyists/etc. do not need branded content to satisfy their interests
- The previously stated problem that every "kit" seems to be an introductory level, MAKE never really seems to teach advanced concepts. You get interested in "technology" enough to buy a kit, but they don't really want to empower you to be able to make your own without them? (Or maybe its not nefarious but that is just the case)
- I'd be curious to see numbers of folks who self-identify as makers... the community has certainly grown since ~2005, but did it peak and taper off? Or are these skills just subsumed into other internet hobby sectors?