SPEAK TO CHANGE
AND EVOLUTION
F
or over 6 years I’ve been writing
this editor’s note and publishing the
magazine and despite what the title
of the magazine may be, it is a publication
predominantly concerned with hardware
reviews. Some may wonder why when
the focus ought to be overclocking as per
title of the magazine. Well, it turns out
that’s a deceptively detailed question and
discussion.
If one looks back about ten to fifteen years
ago, the print industry was still thriving. It
shared an influence over consumers with
the internet and of course TV and radio.
One happy family if you will. However –
the internet – easily the most disruptive
technology ever, changed all of that.
The internet unlike any other medium is
capable of enabling a near infinite number
of things and part of that means it is
perfectly capable of invalidating what were
previously viable forms of communication
and interaction. So as print media began
to decline as editorial was increasingly
consumed on the web, the business of
technology related journalism changed
as well. Be it in gaming or hardware, it
all changed to instant production and
consumption. Where websites embraced
the shift away from costly print media,
eventually websites themselves fell victim
to another form of media which is internet
video, specifically YouTube® and to a lesser
extend Twitch®.
Mind you the same thing is happening with
TV as well, satellite and cable companies
the world over are at the mercy of the
internet and online streaming services.
What does this have to do with
overclocking and general technology
blogging and journalism? Well the
relationship between editorial and the
business side of it has always been
separate, at least in theory. How it worked
is that readers would buy a magazine
and the revenue from that would get the
magazine printed, distributed in addition to
providing a living for those involved. That
worked well enough, so the more wide
spread the publication, the better it became.
Advertising within magazines was a way
for vendors and game publishers to reach
said readers by pay the publications for
that space. A clear separation of state and
church if you will.
However with the advent of the internet, readers and of course
potential consumers no longer needed to pay for information
or editorial. It was completely free, delivered in a near instant
manner and could be updated. Those are all great developments
respectively, however the question of how that very same content
is funded was never asked at all. The individuals producing the
content on the websites, still needed and still need the same
revenue stream that those who worked in print media did. That
there are no print and distribution costs is great, but with that it
also means that there’s no direct way to generate revenue. As such,
the separation of state and church that kept editorial separate
from advertorial was no longer there. If the users were not paying
to keep the online publications and websites afloat, it had to come
from somewhere else and that is hardware vendors and game
publishers.
That also meant, that for the first time they held sway over the
content of what was written and in more recent cases what is said
and viewed about any particular product or game. An inevitable
outcome because the power is no longer in the hands of the end
users and readers, but whole heartedly in the hands of the vendors.
As such, if you find that online reviews are perhaps vacuous and
just about all reviews (video or written) are coming across as
glorified press releases, it is precisely because that’s what they
have become. One should not however look at vendors as purveyors
of all things untrue, no that is to miss the point entirely. These
are businesses and at the end of the day, business exists to make
money and poor reviews, be it video or written runs contrary to that.
There’s more to this than the space allows here, but suffice to say
I will continue this in the next issue with a solution that I do believe
would satisfy all involved, from the vendors, the readers/end users
and the publishers of content without sacrificing the truth at all. It isn’t
an impossible situation to deal with and it has an obvious solution once
explained. In the meantime rest assured that what we write within, is
as genuine as possible. We review what we think is truly worthwhile,
if it isn’t, it simply doesn’t appear in the magazine at all. However, let’s
leave that for the next issue, until then do take care.
[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]
Issue 37 | 2016 The OverClocker 3