
End of the road for MacNN: 21 years of changes for Apple, and for us - aaronbrethorst
http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/06/20/long.time.staff.winding.up.two.decades.of.service.at.the.end.of.june.134716/
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mikeash
Lots of "I've never heard of them" comments, mostly from people who think that
"since the original iPhone came out" is a long time to have followed Apple.

MacNN used to be my go-to source for Apple news, back when "Apple" and "Mac"
were more or less synonymous. I'm sad to see them go... but at the same time,
mildly surprised they're still around. I haven't visited in years. It's pretty
much as they say: who needs a niche site like this when Apple news is
plastered everywhere?

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ghshephard
It's interesting - I probably spend 2+ hours a day, reading Apple/Tech news,
and reading all the various links, listening to a bunch of the podcasts. Some
sites just keep coming up over and over - HN, macrumors, 9to5mac, imore.com,
macworld.com - obviously the standard daringfireball.net, recode, theverge,
bloomberg, wsj and NYT.com, some of the new ones like sixcolors.com, and the
podcasts (ATP.fm, TheTalkShow), asymco (though less posting recently) In
particular, stratechery.com has been knocking it out of the park in the last
year.

Even though I don't visit it, I'm at least peripherally aware of theloop,
information, etc... And usually hear a reference to sites like them every
month or so. - But I'm struggling to remember, if even once in the last 5
years of that 2+ hours a day, I came across a story from macNN. Obviously this
is an anecdote, but, 5+ years at 2 (or more) hours a day - you'd think I'd
recall something from the site - but nothing comes to mind...

~~~
ralfd
Same. I think the issue is lack of personality and blandness. I clicked
through some MacNN articles and they all had the anonymous byline "MacNN
staff".

In comparison the successful Apple blogs are done by driven and opinionated
individuals (Jason Snell, John Gruber, Siracusa, Marco Arment, Ben Thompson)
which you get familiar with over the years and reading/listening to them over
time is like talking sports with your pals. MacRumors has Arnold Kim, 9to5mac
had Mark Gurman etc I don't even read iMore often, I but still know that Rene
Ritchie and Serenity Caldwell are working there. MacNN? I have a blank.

------
Xixi
MacNN, MacCentral and MacOSRumors are the reason I can read English today: I
would check them everyday on my dialup modem and read nearly every single
news, not without the help of a good old paper English-French dictionary.
Maybe there were good online dictionaries, but I didn't find them at the time
(Altavista/Lycos/Magellan/Yahoo! were not particularly helping...).

Thanks for all MacNN!

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icodestuff
End of an era indeed. I read this site religiously back when MacRumors only
did rumors and not news, so probably 1999-2003 or so. I assume MR starting to
do news was the reason I stopped, but I actually don't remember. The thing is
though, they were never the best, only the most thorough. If there was a piece
of Apple-related news, they had it, but the writing wasn't top notch, and
there's not a single editorial I can remember sticking out. Contrast with
MacEdition.net (not sure if that's even still around), which had pretty good
news, but great writing and fantastic editorials, really more like blogs.
Stopped reading that once the content there slowed to a trickle though.

~~~
karmelapple
Similar story here, although it was their forums that I frequented. I helped
people who had questions, requested help myself from anything to tech
questions to feedback on my latest software, and enjoyed the goofy posts
there. It was a bit of Reddit and HN before I knew about those communities.

The forums eventually became less valuable, less fun, but I'm not precisely
sure why.

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gardano
Naive question: Are our ad-blocked web sessions killing the small guys?

My morning routine starts with:

• loopisight.com

• daringfireball.com

• marco.org

• verynicewebsite.net

• inessential.com

and with some exceptions, posts these days are just links to podcasts (which I
don't have a desire to listen to). I've been told that it is because podcasts
are an actual source of income, whereas blog posts are not so much a way of
earning a living.

Makes me wonder if it is that podcasts are _more_ lucrative, or that blog
posts are _no longer_ lucrative.

Edit: And did ad-blocked loss of advertising play a role in MacNN's demise?

~~~
jlarocco
> I've been told that it is because podcasts are an actual source of income,
> whereas blog posts are not so much a way of earning a living.

The expectation that a person could start a website, fill it with advertising,
and make money has made the internet significantly less valuable as a resource
for finding information, IMO, so I don't have a big problem with this.

~~~
gardano
I have nothing but respect for the gentlemen running the above websites, and
cast no blame on those that prefer podcasts (indeed, it would be strange if
marco in particular didn't have a podcast). None of the aforementioned sites
are filled with advertising.

Perhaps I am a too-small demographic nowadays such that I prefer to read my
commentary rather than listen to it.

------
bobbles
Well I've been reading Mac and Apple related stuff basically daily since the
iPhone came out, and have never even heard of these guys.

~~~
rcarmo
"Since the iPhone came out" means you climbed aboard at a much later era :)

~~~
threeseed
The era of Hypercard, RAM Doubler, AppleTalk, Dark Castle etc and wondering
when Cyberdog, OpenDoc and Taligent were going to change the future of
computing. Good times.

~~~
superswordfish
There's also seven years of OSX before the iPhone happened.

~~~
mikeash
Eight, or ten if you count Rhapsody (which you should!).

~~~
rcarmo
I still have System 6.0.4 floppies :)

Alas, I had to get rid of my SE/30, my Classic, and my LC II. And not having
bought a IIfx still stings.

~~~
whoopdedo
Last time I moved I found my old Mac IIsi. Plugged it in to see how the old
girl was holding up only to be greeted with "bong _POP_ ~fizzle~" and the
smell of ozone. The power supply gave out and though I was able to use a bench
PS to boot, it was unreliable.

Also, a modern LCDs although conceptually multisync does not actually like
frequencies that aren't PC standard S/VGA. Or it was the sync-on-green causing
problems.

------
Tloewald
Macsurfer.com — a simpler and more useful site — has been around since 1995 as
well. If I've ever read anything on MacNN it's been because it was linked from
Macsurfer

------
pmarreck
Apple's rate of releasing genuinely new Mac hardware and software has slowed
considerably in the past few years as they've refocused on iDevices. The only
2 I can think of were the cylindrical Mac Pro (which I own and am happy with)
and the newest MacBook and its USB-C port.

Might this be why?

~~~
uptown
Margins and addressable userbase. For many people, their mobile device is
their only device. And if they do own a laptop or desktop, they're likely to
keep it longer than their mobile device since it's likely to be fast enough
and subsequent version aren't likely to provide huge advancements that affect
most users.

------
toodlebunions
Stupid question, but why shut down? Why not sell? Surely a 20 year old web
property has value to someone.

~~~
jacquesm
They cover that in the article:

> there's less need for an Apple-specific news site when news about Apple is
> plastered everywhere, on every site, all the time.

Including HN. Every Apple keynote there are 20 links plastered all over the HN
homepage for even the most inane little details.

~~~
kagamine
That isn't a full explanation as it is much like saying that Harold's
Millinery of Saville Row has to close because no-one is wearing hats, but the
name is well known and maybe it's time to start selling scarves, ties and
what-not. OP perhaps meant the name may be worth something but the content
needs diversifying?

~~~
jacquesm
I never even heard of them, not sure what that name would be worth but I'm
sure that they aren't so stupid not to think of auctioning off the assets as
an end-game.

~~~
kagamine
I hadn't heard of them either and I bought my first mac in 2001, so right
about the time they were popular too. Apparently some people had heard of them
though, Charles Arthur from theGuardian technology section tweeted just now
about their closure
[https://twitter.com/charlesarthur/status/745154921268273153](https://twitter.com/charlesarthur/status/745154921268273153)

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yardie
If their focus was on the too niche market of Macs and they completely ignored
the iDevices and peripherals than that is a failure of strategic planning.
Jobs trimmed the product line to 4 all the way back in 1998, iBook, Powerbook,
iMac, and Powermac towers (G3, G4, G5). I really enjoy Apple products but I'd
be reluctant to build a business model around them.

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djsumdog
I've never heard of this site until just now.

