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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: ArcView vs MapInfo vs Manifold |
| Date: |
08/27/2002 11:05:21 PM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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>
> 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."
>
Bill,
Given the overall editorial integrity of Directions Magazine I should have
used a qualifier. It would have been more accurate for me to break this
down into two observations: a) that all of the journalistic organizations
reporting on GIS are small enough so that writing a major, in-depth review
is a serious drain on their resources, and b) that small trade journals in
small markets usually cannot alienate their advertisers in significant ways
and expect to survive in the long run, and that this process deeply
influences the editorial content of most (but not all) such journals.
As for specific evidence, I regret to say that there is very much of it. We
routinely are solicited by journalistic organizations for cash payments for
everything from straight editorial commentary to reviews to reprints of
press releases. Sometimes this is dressed up by asking us to "sponsor" a
piece and sometimes it is just a simple quid pro quo. I've seen this pop up
in GIS a lot recently, but I have also seen it in previous lives working
with the trade press for Intel and for companies before that going back to
1985. It's business as usual in trade press marketing.
As much as it pains me to answer your challenge, take a look at this link at
the Directions Magazine website:
http://www.directionsmag.com/ads.php?p=26
Here's what the link says:
"In January of 2002, we will be adding three new sections to our
newsletters.
Image of the Week
Map of the Week
Solution of the Month
Image of the Week - This will be a showcase for remotely sensed imagery or
aerial photography. The image will be accompanied by your 50-75 word caption
describing it's application and your homepage URL.
Map of the Week - Just as the image only in map format. Will also include
your 50-75 word caption describing it's application and your homepage URL.
Solution of the Month - The solution will involve a customized development
of software, spatial database and geospatial data that was delivered to a
specific client. This is a great way to show off your talents and let others
know how you can help them. A 200-250 word description of how you solved a
problem that can also point to a 750-1000 word "advertorial" that would
accompany your "Gold" or "Silver" listing on our site.
These items are economically priced. The Image and Map of the Week are $250
per issue and the Solution of the Month is $1250 for four issues. They can
showcase your company in a direct way without crunching your budget!
Images and maps can be sent to us in any format and we will customize for
the magazine. The bigger, the better!
These three areas will have a link in our popular newsletter to our site
where the image, map or web solution will be seen and explained. The image,
map or web solution will move to a gallery on Directions magazine and be a
permanent archive."
The above is a fairly typical situation in ezines. I picked a Directions
Magazine example because in general your book is very honest and because you
raised the issue. However, a simple search of the Advertising pages posted
on just about any ezine's web site will reveal a lot of similar stuff. A
personal call as an advertiser will reveal even more propositions, some of
which are very creative in the way they exploit the ability of editorial
context to lure eyes into advertising messages.
So, readers may think they're seeing an unbiased collection of press
releases, "images of the week" and other such stuff when it appears in their
inbox or pops up in the browser, but what is really going on in some cases
is that the vendors have provided the "editorial" content, paid for
placement and have paid for preferred position. Sometimes it is clear the
material is advertising and sometimes it is not. It depends on the ezine
and on the feature being sold.
For example, just how many visitors to directionsmag.com know that images in
the "Gallery" feature might be there as a result of cash payments made under
the plan quoted above? I didn't realize that the "Gallery" was for sale,
and I'll bet many others didn't know that either.
Is that unethical? Some say it is. I take a more compassionate approach to
the practical difficulties of financing a website that hopes to earn a
living while paying for the quality editorial content we all want to
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