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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | RE: GISList: ArcView vs MapInfo vs Manifold |
| Date: |
08/27/2002 09:22:49 AM |
| From: |
Quantitative Decisions |
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At 06:31 PM 8/26/02 -0700, Dimitri Rotow wrote:
>All of the journalistic
>organizations reporting on GIS are so small they cannot afford to alienate
>their big advertisers by writing favorable reviews about non-advertisers.
>You'd feel the same way and would do the same thing in their shoes, as would
>I
This is the Nth time (N >> 3) in just a few weeks that someone has made
this claim. I can no longer stand by and be tarred with this brush, this
undiscriminating, inclusive "all" that commences the statement.
I challenge Dimitri or anyone else to support this claim with
evidence. (How you "would feel" does not count.) And Dimitri, if you
cannot, I believe you owe public apologies to a lot of "journalistic
organizations."
In the case of Directions Magazine, which I edited during 2001 and to which
I contributed for several preceding years, I assert without reservation
that these aspersions and calumnies about us being editorially beholden to
"big advertisers" is out-and-out false. Scott Elliott, founder and first
editor of the magazine until his untimely death last year, especially
relished piquing the powers that be: even if they were also his advertisers
or, at one point, his employers.
I learned about Scott's attitude first-hand when he published an article on
the ArcView-L discussion list
(http://www.directionsmag.com/news.php?news_id=44 , August 1999). That
certainly wasn't aimed at making ESRI happy
(http://www.directionsmag.com/letters.php?letter_id=22).
More about Scott is available in brief obituaries appearing at
http://www.directionsmag.com/features.php?feature_id=41 and
http://www.directionsmag.com/features.php?feature_id=42 . Here's a quote
from the latter: "[Scott's] ejection from the [MapInfo reseller] group was
as dramatic as the boys from Troy could make it. Kind of like those old
Western movies where the offending officer was stripped of his buttons with
a sword and marched out the gate of the fort to Indian territory."
A man like that does not put his life's savings and work into a publication
that is going to suck up to its advertisers.
See, for example, my review of the Idrisi32 software at
http://www.directionsmag.com/features.php?feature_id=40 (October 2000),
which did not hesitate to point out potential shortcomings in that product,
or the conclusion of the ArcView "Class Hunt," a contest which awarded
substantial cash prizes for finding errors in ArcView's scripting language
(http://www.directionsmag.com/features.asp?FeatureID=32 , April
2000). Neither of those is particularly flattering to companies which were
our major advertisers at the time. I give high marks to Clark Labs and
ESRI for neither complaining nor, as far as I can tell, cutting back their
advertising with Directions.
There are, indeed, plenty of media outlets posing as GIS magazines which
mindlessly pass on press releases and other such rubbish as if it were
independent content, and clearly are deeply beholden to their
advertisers. My opinion on that--short and to the point--appears in an
editorial at http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=99 (April
2001). It should be needless to say--but evidently I have to say it
anyway--that Directions is not in that group.
Yes, Directions is small, but you can still rely on it as "your GIS news
source." Under the direction of Joe Francica it has become better than
ever and continues to grow.
--Bill Huber
Contributing Editor, Directions Magazine
PS I would be remiss if I failed to mention Adena Schutzberg's fine
weekly newsletter, "GIS Monitor"
(http://mx1.profsurv.com/gis_newsletter/subs.php ). Yes, she works for the
competition :-), but without fail her articles and editorials are to the
point and insightful. I really doubt she is catering to her advertisers,
either.
PPS By the way, you can subscribe to Joe Francica's weekly newsletter at
http://www.directionsmag.com/ -- see the form in the upper right
corner. Subscriptions to Joe's and Adena's newsletters are free.
To unsubscribe, write to gislist-unsubscribe@geocomm.com
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