Delete me now
I was so sorry to read about recent events at JPG. The glossy, dense photography magazine seemed to combine the best of web and print publishing to create a new paradigm, a paper publication that was based in a web community of enthusiasts who would generate the content rather than passively consuming it. I first joined the on-line web community and soon subscribed. I’ve devoured each issue as it’s arrived, and high on my to-do list recently has been to submit more pictures, and maybe even an article or two.
Today I cancelled our subscription and deleted my profile.
The dust is still settling, but it appears that the founders were forced out, blind-sided by the greed and deceit generated by the success of the publishing company founded upon the magazine. These things happen when little ideas take off in a plume of venture capital. What really soured me, and apparently many in the JPG community, were the lies. The new management appear to wish to rewrite the story of the magazine’s founding, to delete the first six issues, and to reject the founders’ vision of the community being the heart of the enterprise. They have dismantled that community. Not smart if you rely on your supporters to produce the product. Perhaps JPG will remake itself and succeed as a different entity. Certainly they can live without me. I joined it not to be an advertiser’s target demographic, but to be a member of a community. They’ve wrecked it. This is permanent and cannot be undone.
The founders’ side of the story
The MetaFilter thread
The “I deleted my JPG Magazine account” group at Flickr
Photogs closing JPG Magazine accounts in droves in wake of its creators’ rape by corporate swine
This is bad enough based on the standard shitty corporate things they are doing, but the desire to rewrite the story of the magazine’s founding and delete the first six issues just leaves me cold.
Comment by Jane — Wednesday 16 May 07 @ 22.10 MDT+2.00
What I really don’t get is why the publisher has been so quiet. Aside from a quiet fart in this Flickr thread, there doesn’t seem to be any attempt at damage control. It’s bizarre.
Comment by Michael M. — Friday 18 May 07 @ 12.37 MDT+2.00
Michael: I imagine that they are hoping that if they keep quiet the furor will die off rather quickly; the more they react the more they risking adding fuel to the fire, and if the fire spreads beyond a hard core of dedicated web-trend watchers it could torch their entire readership. It’s hard to believe that a majority of members will stay if they catch wind of this. If the issue is swept quietly under the rug (shifting metaphors now, watch out), the magazine could survive.
Comment by sgazzetti — Friday 18 May 07 @ 13.53 MDT+2.00