This is a question that was posed to me recently in a reader email. And it is a good one. So let’s take a few minutes and talk about back content not just here at MyMac.com, but on other Mac websites as well. (Because I know how much other Mac writers LOVE it when I talk about them.)
First, let’s define back content. Back content is the term used when describing older written material, such as a column written a year ago. Of course, back content could also refer to content posted an hour ago. But for this article, I am talking about archived writing. Stuff at least a few months old, but really more specifically over a year old.
MyMac.com turned Six years old in June 2001. I will save you the hard math and just say we started in June 1995 as a monthly downloadable edition in DOCMaker format. Posted to local Bulletin Board systems, AOL, and eWorld we were then called “My Mac Magazine.” Actually, we still are legally, but since we don’t offer a regular monthly download, it is easier for people to remember MyMac.com.
Six years is a long time to write and publish anything, let alone a free monthly digital magazine. But after Six years, we have published a LOT of content. A lot! And I am of the opinion that our older content is just as interesting to read as our most current content. Would you not buy a book just because it is a few years old? Granted, news articles from three years ago may be interesting to read for nostalgic reasons, but we have never done “The News” here. Almost all our back content consists of opinion, reviews, interviews, and the like. And I think that content is still interesting to read.
So what about our back content? Well, for the past two months, our Webmaster Adam and myself have been working on upgrading our Archive page, and when done, will link to pretty much everything we have ever written. No small task when you look at just how many pages I am talking about!
I also change our “Clicks of Interest” links on a regular basis, which you can find on the left side of our website. Those are links to our back content from a few months ago to years ago. Just a few months ago, I put up a link to a mock review of the 128k Macintosh I wrote back in June 1998. I got a TON of feedback afterwards, on a three-year-old column! How many other writers get feedback on their older stuff?
Very few. Want to know why? Because very, VERY few even link to their old content.
There seems to be a mentality at work in the Macintosh web world that readers only want to read the latest and greatest stuff, not older content. The past is almost lost for many of these sites it seems. And I don’t understand this at all? Are they ashamed of who they were then? Do they not feel readers would be interested in that older writing? Or are they just too lazy? I took a look at some random Mac websites to find back content, and wrote what I found below.
A note first: Please don’t think this is an attack on anyone. It is not. It is simply a concern of mine as a publisher, writer, and more importantly, a reader. Yes, I read what the other Mac website writers and doing. I want to be able to read older and newer columns. So for those who do not do a good job linking to their older content, I hope they take this as an invitation to correct this practice, and let us readers have easy access to the plethora of great writing out there.
MacCentral
Let’s start with one of the more popular (as far as daily “hits”) Macintosh websites out there today, MacCentral. I remember when MacCentral had some of the very best writers in the Mac world, and I looked forward to reading a good column at least two or three times a week. With that much back content, I would assume I could quickly go there and find some archived writing well worth reading again.
…Or not.
Nope, NO link to ANYTHING even a two month old! Oh, wait, they do have a “news archive” page, going back to June 29th. But what about those old ANDY IHNATKO columns I enjoyed so much from 1999? Nope, cannot find them unless I use their search tool.
Okay, so MacCentral does have all their back content. But unless you want to manually search through their site to find it, you would never know it is even there.
Back Content rating: D
Macworld Magazine
Ah, Macworld! The defacto leader of the Macintosh press. Surly they have a good archive or online and back issue content. A quick visit to their home page reveals…
Not bad at all! You do have to go to the bottom of their home page, but you will find an “Archive” section listed. Clicking it will bring you to an archive of Macworld Magazine, listed by month of the current year, with further links from 1994-2000. Click, say, 1995 will bring up an archive page listing each month of 1995, so it is easy to find past issues.
What they lack, however, is an archive for writers. For instance, I cannot find a David Pogue archive page. I would have to go to each year, and then each month in that year, manually clicking each page, to find the various links to Mr. Pogue’s past columns. I would think these popular writers would at least warrant their own archive page.
Back Content rating: B+ (VERY close to an A-)
MacWeek
Going to www.macweek.com will actually take you to the MacCentral website. But if you look hard enough on the MacCentral page, almost to the bottom on the left hand side, you will find a “MacWEEK Archive” link. Clicking it will bring up a archive page for all of 2000 and 2001 (well, up to February of 2001, when they stopped publishing.) These links are quite nifty. Clicking any of the months within each year brings up a calendar type of archive page for each day of that month. Inside each “day” is the links for the content for that day.
Nifty. But alas, no easy way to find all the columns for, say, Scott Myers. All that great writing, and you have to go month by month to find it. And what about pre-2000 stuff? Not there anymore it seems. And no search engine in place to look for it. All that content, just gone forever it seems. Sad.
Back Content rating: C-
The MacObserver
Bryan Chaffin is the man! Now THIS is a site which respects its writers and their past work! Right at the top of the main page is a navigation bar with “Archive” right there. That link brings up a yearly listing, with each month of that year linked right below. Each sub-page for each month in each year shows every headline (with links) for every news story, review, and article for each day of that month. Fantastic!
But what about finding, say, all the columns that Bryan Chaffin has written? Or Rodney O. Lain? A wonder of wonders, there on every archive page is a link that says “Columns & Editorials” which brings up a link to the myriad writers of the site. Clicking “The Back Page” will bring up a listing of all of Bryan’s writing going back to December 1998, and including the most current one!
Back Content rating: A+ And the one all others should be measured against. Hats off to the MacObserver crew! I can only hope that when our own Archive page is done, it will come close to measuring up to theirs.
AppleLinks
AppleLinks has had some really great writers. John Farr. Charles W. Moore. Del Miller. Kirk Hiner. Paul Shields. John Martellaro. So, how are their archive pages? How easy is it to find all that great back content?
Not bad at all! At the top of their page is a link titled “Columns” which has a link to all the major columns written for AppleLinks. That Columns page has a link to the archive of each column written by each writer.
Site creator Joe Ryan has gone a remarkable job of keeping all those columns straight. He obviously has respect for past work done by his writers, and makes it somewhat easy to find all that great old writing.
Back Content rating: A-. I would have had better luck finding the back content faster had there been an “AppleLinks Archive” button rather than a non-descriptive “Columns” button. But it is all there. Good job, AppleLinks!
Macintouch
While I don’t really remember any “Columns” ever at Macintouch, I am sure there must have been at one time or another. Or am I wrong? Well, regardless, there should be easy past content links easily accessible. And sure enough, there is a “Recent News” link right there on the front page. Clicking that will bring up all the news headlines for the past week or so. But what about really older stuff? Say, the headlines from a year ago? This is “The Original Mac news and information site since 1994” after all. (Or so their tag line says.)
No such luck. The only way to find back content older than, say, a week is to use their search engine. And while that works, it is not the best or easiest solution for the readers.
Back Content rating: D+
MacAddict
Well, besides their butt-ugly GREEN color scheme (note to MacAddict: no one likes that column, please change it) they do have an “Archive” navigation link right at the top of the page. Moving your mouse over it brings up sub-headings, such as Big News, Newsletters, Soapbox, and a few others. So, I click “Big News.” I should get a page linking to archive “Big News” then, right?
Nope. All I get is a page that reads “Local newsy articles are archived here.” What the hell is THAT?
Okay, okay, I will try another. I click Archive-Newsletters. Maybe it will be an archive of their Newsletters or something. That would be handy, I can read some older
Newsletters and see if I want to subscribe to one.
What’s this? All this “archive” page has is a form to SIGN UP for their Newsletter. What the hell kind of archive is this, anyhow? One more try…
Ah-ha! Pay dirt! An archive page! An honest to goodness archive page, going all the way back to, uh, March of this year. Ah well, it is an archive page at any rate.
All in all, for a company such as MacAddict, this is a piss-poor archive page. They should be ashamed.
Back Content rating: E
Accelerate Your Mac (better known as xlr8yourmac)
This is a great website, one I visit every few days. Their archive page is very easy to use and find. A clear “Archive” link right below their logo on the main page means they understand the importance of good back content. Their archive section is laid out in a similar fashion to The MacObserver, listing each year, and each month of that year in a calendar. Simply clicking on a day in that month (for each year) will bring up that archive page. Very well done!
Back Content rating: A
LowEndMac
Another decent site, one I made a point of visiting regularly until the site owner asked for reader donations and then used said money to take a trip to Macworld in New York. I have since stopped visiting the site. But I degrees. I am supposed to be writing about back content, not questionable business integrity.
LowEndMac (LEM for short) sports a very decent archive page, though it is listed under “Editorials” rather than “Archive.” Schematics aside, their archive page is well done, with a link to the major column titles, which in turn links to another links page with all the back content listed in newest to oldest order. LEM even offers a good description of each column on the archive page, something many other sites do not.
Back Content rating: A+
TidBits
TidBits is more a magazine than a simple website. But back content is indeed plentiful there! The “Back Issues” link has links all the way back to issue #1 from April 1990! WOW!
With the sheer volume of back content online at TidBits, their archive scheme is about as good as it can be. For that reason alone, I give TidBits high marks. It is still not easy to find just what your looking for, and there is no listing of specific writer archive, it can be somewhat forgiven because of its vast size.
Back Content rating: A-
Insanely-Great Mac
Good content, but no real “archive” section. They do sport a “Features” link at the top of the page, but it is only a short list of some of the features IGM has posted in the past. Their “Reviews” link sports many links to their products they have reviewed, but it is not a long list. I am not sure if they are simply not linking everything, or have not done all that many reviews in their years of existence?
Back Content rating: C
Inside Mac Games
This is a great Mac gaming site if you’re looking for the most current and up-to-date information on your favorite Mac games. Finding older content is not as easy, however. With no archive page at all, you have to follow the “reviews” link to find a plethora of game reviews, and a “features” link to find only a years worth of feature articles. No bad, but for all the information IMG has presented in the past few years, I would like to find a much better archive page.
Back Content rating: C
MacOS Rumors
This is a pretty popular site, I know, but it has been months since last I visited the site. Wonder what I have missed? Well, clicking their “archive” link shows me about three days worth of archives. What about older stuff from, say, a year ago?
At the bottom of the page, it reads, “Looking for older Updates? Check out our June 2001 Archive; scroll to its bottom to reach earlier Archives.” Cool. So all I have to do to find all the false rumors from a year ago is click eleven links on eleven pages? No thanks.
Back Content rating: D+
Go2Mac
Another of the Mac news sites, this one sports very good writing from very knowledgeable sources. Unfortunately, their archive page is pretty sparse. It only consists of a “recent news” section that goes back a few weeks. That’s it.
Back Content rating: D-
AppleInsider
Another rumors site, but one of the better ones. Run with a degree of responsibly most other rumor sites lack, it unfortunately has paid little attention to the desires of its readers putting its archive together. It is a jumbled mess, with no discernible order to it. Just one line after another of links. No good.
Back Content rating: C- (and only that because even though it is hard to find anything, at least it is all there.)
MyMac.com
Yes, I will end this (long) list with my own site. Going to My Mac, you will find an “Archive” link right under the main logo. Clicking it will bring up a background page of its writers, under each of which is a link to an archive page. Also present it links to older content (issues 21-61) and some other stuff. It is not easy to find what your looking for if it is content older a year old. You have to navigate each past issue to find anything.
Back Content rating: C- The good news, though, is that I am working on it, and will follow the excellent examples of The MacObserver, LowEndMac and AppleLinks.
So what does this say for the Mac users out there? Well, there is a plethora of back content online at most of the Mac websites, but it is not always easy to find. But for those sites that make it easy to locate and read all that great back content, you will find yourself going back time and time again. Nothing, to me at any rate, is better than finding good stuff to read, quickly and easily.
One last thing. I have noticed a trend in that most independent (i.e., not corporate owned) Mac web sites generally have better access to their older content that do the 200 pound gorillas such MacCentral. My thought is, they are much more proud of their work than the corporate lackeys are. And for the most part, it shows.
For those with a high grade, thank you! I love you for it. For those with a bad grade, what’s your problem? Get on it already! I am! And for those with an average grade, well, you can make your own conclusions on how important your older content is to both your writers and readers.
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