Saturday, January 31, 2009

Media Fail

I read in the Irish Times today that the Dublin Event Guide is folding… sorry, it is discontinuing its print edition and will henceforth exist solely online. This is an ominous development. The Dublin Event Guide was a useful listings magazine, covering events in Dublin. I cannot make any claims for it being totally brilliant or anything, but it was a handy way of keeping an eye on what was going on in this city. The last time I looked, their website was not up to much; maybe they have plans to upgrade it, but I would be surprised if they have the money for it. In any case, listings are one thing where print media scores highly over electronic – it is far easier to browse through a listings magazine than to look at a listings website. I found with the Event Guide that the advertisements placed by the venues would catch my eye as much as the actual listings, something that is not really going to happen with some stupid website (and one I will in all likelihood never look at).

So there is nothing for it, I will have to start buying the Irish Times on Fridays, in order to read The Ticket, their attempt at a listings magazine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The same shit just happened with our 'alternative' free weekly paper, the Chicago Reader. There are a few paragraphs devoted to gig, movie, and theatre listings but the entire dictionary-like listings sections have been removed to all go online. I haven't looked once at them.

My routine would be to pick up a paper Thursday or Friday night, come home, and look at the listings. There are still 'highlights' but they are completely subjective so how do I know what to look for? Bullshit.

ian said...

yeah... I used to browse it in coffeeshops while having my lunch. Can't do that with an online version (eh, I suppose you could if you had one of those portable computer things, but it is a bit difficult to use those while simultanaeously eating lunch).