Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine

I was alerted to a new model railroad magazine. From the people who bring you model-trains-video.com. Here's what I know about it.

1) It's digital, comes in a PDF.

2) Said PDF is 77MB (seventy-seven megabytes). Already I'm having my doubts, but they claim 122 pages of content.

3) To operate said PDF, I am forced to download Adobe Acrobat Reader 9, as older versions will not work. Said PDF has multimedia content...

I'll report back on content... as soon as I finish installing software.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/

-otto-

It is ~77MB and it is 121 pages. I went through it quickly but I haven't done a real reading of it yet.

Much very good color photography, a wide range of articles, a lot of multimedia content ("click to play this") including advertisements.

The magazine also hosts its own message board for comments from readers.

I think I was overwhelmed with the amount of content. Too much interactivity. Too many pages- could have been 65 pages and been just as impactful. Couldn't tell where features ended and ads began. The whole thing looked like one big ad, truthfully. Saw some great photography in there, though. Will give it a more thorough read in the next few days...

-otto-

Anyone else look at it?

I tried to load it and and my computer froze up Otto. Too much for my old Compaq.

Randy Earle wrote:I tried to load it and and my computer froze up Otto. Too much for my old Compaq.

Yeah, I hear you. Even though I pride myself on having the "latest and greatest" because I'm a graphic designer, I felt that there was nothing convenient about downloading a 77MB document followed by having to install a new version of Adobe Reader. Also, I found nothing gained by the animated advertising embedded in the mag. One thing I did like about the rich media was the embedded "3-d" images that allowed you to look at all sides of a weathered hopper car, for instance. Otherwise, I think there was too much concentration on using new media technology for the sake of the technology, not because it enhanced communication. In art, as in life, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

-otto-

I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was well written and uses technology well. If you don't like the requirements for the software, then don't read the magazine.

Otto Vondrak wrote:Anyone else look at it?

To tell you the truth, I wasn't all that impressed. The gimmicky stuff did more to turn me off then excite me. Content was too broad, or at least mostly outside the range of my particular interests. Of the topics covered, only the layout plan really clicked with me.

Of course, this was just a first effort, so perhaps it will improve with time. Just the same, I'm troubled by the idea of an e-zine being offered at no cost to the reader. Are there really that many accomplished hobbyist willing to write for free? Perhaps so but the feature article I wrote for a magazine recently netted me $600+ and these days I regard it as foolish to do so for free.

CNJ999

CNJ999 wrote:I'm troubled by the idea of an e-zine being offered at no cost to the reader. Are there really that many accomplished hobbyist willing to write for free? Perhaps so but the feature article I wrote for a magazine recently netted me $600+ and these days I regard it as foolish to do so for free.

CNJ999

I think the idea is to pay for the distribution and articles via advertising. The advertising rates are much higher than I would have thought they would have been for just distribution, so I assume that the authors are getting paid for their work, as some schools of thought say they should be.

CNJ999 wrote: I'm troubled by the idea of an e-zine being offered at no cost to the reader. Are there really that many accomplished hobbyist willing to write for free? Perhaps so but the feature article I wrote for a magazine recently netted me $600+ and these days I regard it as foolish to do so for free.

CNJ999

That's fine for you and there certainly is nothing wrong with making a buck within the model railway hobby. Having said that, however, a couple of things happen to be the case. First, few, if any individuals are going to make a career out of doing this, and secondly, I prefer to hear from persons who are not trying to sell me something when it comes to any aspect of... (I was going to say "the hobby", but really - "anything"). Knowledge for knowledge's sake is the mark of the purist who not only is interested in a subject, but wants to share his interest with others. I like my information direct, simple, and uncluttered with agendas.

I like the content. Since I dropped my MR subscription (February 09 was my final issue) I've been looking for something model-railroady to read. I personally liked their graphics, and I thought that the content overall was between acceptable, and good. Which is fine for something that I don't pay for...

My $0.02

3rdrail wrote:

CNJ999 wrote: I'm troubled by the idea of an e-zine being offered at no cost to the reader. Are there really that many accomplished hobbyist willing to write for free? Perhaps so but the feature article I wrote for a magazine recently netted me $600+ and these days I regard it as foolish to do so for free.

I prefer to hear from persons who are not trying to sell me something when it comes to any aspect of... (I was going to say "the hobby", but really - "anything"). Knowledge for knowledge's sake is the mark of the purist who not only is interested in a subject, but wants to share his interest with others. I like my information direct, simple, and uncluttered with agendas.

why should good information be free? i'm a cheapskate, too, but i'm more interested in accuracy in my news/information. doubtless those would suffer if the authors aren't compensated.

look at the business model for newspapers right now for an example of how advertising alone doesn't pay the way. i'd really rather the writer/journalist be attempting to write something "for the reader" rather than "for the advertiser" in terms of content. the "free" on-line content of most major newspapers is killing their circulation and bottom line.

as cnj999 states, "these days i regard it as foolish to do so for free", yet that's just what many newspapers/newsrooms have been doing lately.

who's to say the content in the free online subscription to the train hobby mag doesn't have an agenda, especially if advertising is paying 100% of the bill?

Um, if you look on their site, they DO pay for submitted articles.