We try to let our target readers vote -- once a year -- on the products that they choose and use. We disqualified all vendors -- big and small. I don't see how that makes our conclusions less statistically valid given who we say our audience is.
...I had to rescan this statement repeatedly, just to make sure that you really did in fact state what was said. Rachel, are you saying that because some of us work in the IT field, that we're incapable of purchasing anything other than the products that our employers produce?
Yeah. Right. Uh-huh. We're all corporate sheep, and we buy the company line whether it suits our purposes or not. All of us who work for vendors regardless of size, shape or product, follow the following dogma like a bunch of zealots:
"What? Our modems have no mike jacks for voice mail recording and don't do 33.6 yet? And our keyboards don't have the Win95 keys yet? Well, hell, we'll just do without until we produce one of our own! Better to suffer than to help the enemy!!...You know, it's crapola like this that has me wondering if IW isn't an abbreviation for "It's the Wolif!" Does IW actually have a damn clue as to who their "target audience" really is? No? Here, I'll give you a hint: it's anyone who subscribes to IW in the first place. That means everyone, not just the non-IT employed readers. Whether it be Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Andy Grove or Steve Jobs, whether it be Joe Punchcard, Jose Assembler, Ethyl Office-Ornamente or John Cabledragger, if they read IW their vote counts. Period.
...Face it, Rachel: IW isn't Reader's Digest or The Shotgun News. People don't subscribe to a trade/adrag like IW just to make sure they get something at least once a week in their Snail Mail Box. They are intelligent decision makers, and deserve to be treated as such. Two polls in a row with "results" that are offensive to the intelligence of the entire readership as a whole is not indicative of an editorial staff that is either aware or concerned about the fact that they're dealing with intelligent professionals.
Bottom line is this: The sooner IW accepts this fact and starts behaving itself like an intelligent professional, magazine again, the sooner this debacle will subside and the healing of IW'sreputation and the feelings of the readership can begin. Of course, with editors like Sandy Reed at the helm who're more interested in protecting their egos than respecting their readership, I'm not going to hold my breath in anticipation...
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