Rocker Zine

http://www.rockerzine.com/

Rocker is an online lifetsyle zine for mature hipsters. I contacted the editor to find out why they chose the online route instead of a printed copy.
Here is the email i received back.

Hello Katie,

Thanks for getting in touch, I've posted some answers to your
questions below. Best of luck with your dissertation 

> How was it decided that Rockerzine would be best produced online? 

To be honest, when I started Rockerzine I wanted it to be a print
magazine, but the startup costs involved with such a venture were so
high I went with online first. For me, it's been a learning curve
having come from a print media background. So realizing for online
ventures it's important to have video in every story, that you can use
links to things you allude to in your writing (rather than explaining
them), that it is pretty much impossible to protect your copyright,...
all of these things are challenges/differences in online media that
are very different than print. 

> Do you think there is now a decline in print media because of the advance in technology and the Internet? 

It seems beyond disputing this is true, and it's sad. The obvious
reason is cost. It costs money to print items you hold in your hand,
and cost far less to put things up on a website. But I think that
something can be lost from the tactile experience of print as well as
the archival nature of it. As a professional, I've written for a
number of websites that no longer exist, so my writing for them also
no longer exists. Imagine having written a book, people buy it and
read it, but then the publisher of your book goes out of business, so
it's not that they just stop selling your book, they actually go to
the house of everyone who bought your book and take away their copy so
they can't read it again. That is what writing on the internet is
like.

The internet is a transient place that exists in the now, but in 10-20
years there will be no box of old photographs or keepsakes to look
through and recall the meme you loved today. All your LOLcats will
have gone to kitty cat heaven. If I gave you a bunch of computer
files which were 20 years old full of photos etc from the past it's
unlikely they'd even be in a format your computer could read. So then
what happens to these "memories" we share only there in spaces
controlled by other companies? Facebook, like any other company
(Friendster anyone?), may one day shut down and take all your clever
posts and connections to friends with it. In some ways the internet
is another part of our throwaway culture, and I find that sad. 

> I have noticed that there is a Twitter page for Rockerzine. What role does
> social networking play in the distribution of the magazine? 

Social networking allows Rockerzine to interact with other
professional entities - artists we write about, fan groups,
nightclubs, record labels,... to let them know about our coverage of
either their work, or things they are a fan of. Our ability to grow
and find new readers relies on making these connections in lieu of, or
in addition to, advertising. In one way it's positive because you can
find and connect with pockets of people who are interested in what you
do, but the downside is you could spend a lifetime trying to find each
of these groups due to the spread out and obscenely specialized nature
of the internet. For instance, if you write an article about a band,
you would do well to try and connect with the twitter and facebook of:
The band, each band member, the many fan groups for the band, the fan
groups in various countries / languages for band, any groups about the
genre the artist you reported on,... finding and connecting with each
of these groups takes time. I feel like social media marketing is a
job that is a hungry baby that you could feed forever but always wants
more. I'd say the best part of the work our Facebook page is seeing
our fans talking about music while indirectly talking about their
shared experience of being rock fans who are over a certain age. It's
made me understand how lucky I and many of our staff are here in
Boston to have a supportive community of people no longer in their 20s
who still go out to rock shows. Many of our readers talk about their
isolation from others to share their excitement about music with and
that is a hard thing. It also gives you a very easy way to find out
what your readers want and need from you. 

> Has a printed version of Rockerzine ever been considered or do you think it
> will be considered in the future? 

Yes and yes. For our target demographic (music fans 35+) I think a
print magazine would be of more interest to them and be able to
capture their attention better. I'd like it to be the kind with bells
and whistles - a flexi-disc or premium to come with it. Again, it's
really a matter of cost. I think that in the not too distant future
we're going to see a big opening for premium print publications, in
the same way that kids now have a lot of interest in vinyl, I think
that print also is going to come back in that way. Big publishers
will probably never return to the level that they were at before, but
I do see a future for print, just a more dynamic one than its past. 

Not sure if you are covering this in your dissertation, but you are
aware I hope that writers incomes have changed due to internet
publishing? That the very profession of journalism has been deeply
devalued due to the rise of online media? 

Best to you - Erin