July 9, 2002

1:17 PM

Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine about to close:Remember the mid-90's and its big slew of "hip" net magazines? The Web, Netguide, and too many others to mention? YIL joins the net mags graveyard as, not surprisingly, consequence of the dotcom bubble burst and next-to-nil ad revenue. I would add general user's maturity to the factors.
posted by betobeto (10 comments total)

I read issue 1 of YahooIL, and never read another.

I miss the original U.S. version of "The Net". Good start in the mid 90's, then Imagine media killed it as they started other magazines. They had one of the first good tutorial on html....plus their blue pages would give your site an occasional plug.
posted by mkelley at 1:51 PM on July 9, 2002

I actually liked The Net as well, back in the day.

I'm bummed to hear about YIL's passing, they gave MetaFilter a bunch of plugs, and I just did a small interview that was supposed to be in the October issue. Still, it's hard to imagine anyone could sell magazines about online things, as most people read stories online. Plus the lead time is insane. By the time a "cool, new" site is published in a magazine, it's months after you might have seen it online.

There have been just a few occasions in the past 3-4 years where I've bought something like this, and it was always in airports (that didn't have any connectivity) to kill time during a layover. I doubt that's a big enough market to float a monthly magazine.
posted by mathowie at 2:03 PM on July 9, 2002

The Net, sure! I remember its blue pages and all. Those really were the days when anyone -anyone- with a home page could afford some square inches of fame in paper (a claim of sorts for immortality), despite their site rankings would seem absolutely laughable today. Indeed, my first contact with the Net was by means of those magazines and all they said about it. It was nothing short of magical.

*nostalgia for times gone by*
posted by betobeto at 2:18 PM on July 9, 2002

A shame. Y!IL was one of the better web mags. I get the feeling that the market for computer-related magazines is dying though, killed off by the web itself.
posted by Mwongozi at 2:47 PM on July 9, 2002

My favorite was Internet Underground. Some how I got a promo subscription to it, and I got the 2nd through 7th issues for free. As soon as it got bought by ZiffDavis it turned to shit.

Ahh, the pre-weblog days when a Internet magazine actually made sense to me.
posted by betaray at 4:22 PM on July 9, 2002

Another vote for Internet Underground. Good shiznit, I tell ya.
posted by NortonDC at 5:07 PM on July 9, 2002

I'm still holding on to my last "The Net" CD, for that good yummie Shareware circa. 1996. Drue Miller of "Who Would Buy That" and John Perry Barlow of the EFF were columnist. Hell, I learned HTML by accident from The Net's html index.

There was another mag out that, I wish I could remember the name, but they would interview webmasters from GrandRoyal and from small west coast BBSs. I would always pick these up at the grocery store and dream away of becoming a web designer.
posted by mkelley at 7:19 PM on July 9, 2002

Just you wait. Someday this internet thing will take off, and the quitters will be the losers!
posted by dhartung at 1:10 AM on July 10, 2002

"I'm bummed to hear about YIL's passing, they gave MetaFilter a bunch of plugs, and I just did a small interview that was supposed to be in the October issue."

Indeed. I worked with the reporter quite a bit on the article, and suggested to them that they should also talk to you. It was looking to be a very solid article on weblogs. The reporter actually emailed me late last week, apologizing for the publication going under. Unnecessary, but a very nice thing for them to do.

"Still, it's hard to imagine anyone could sell magazines about online things, as most people read stories online."

This from a person who is writing books about weblogs... ;->
posted by insomnia_lj at 1:35 AM on July 10, 2002

Thanks to being a pack rat, I still have a bunch of old issues of The Net (from around '96) and the cd-roms that came with them. And I've been tempted to ebay issues from the first year of Wired since it seems some people really want them. Re-reading the first Wired issue, in which there's no talk about web stuff, is pleasurable.

At my parental storage unit I think I still have years of CompuServe's Online Today magazine from the mid-to-late '80s. I need to remind myself to scan some of the ads from them....

I heart Blue Grrl.
posted by gluechunk at 2:06 AM on July 10, 2002