MagWeb.com Poll 2002

General Comments

by Russ Lockwood
CEO, MagWeb.com

Here are all the other comments inserted into our survey. As before, my responses are in itallics.

I really enjoy Magweb, and always am excited when a new listing appears in the current uploads section.

Don't neglect the horse and musket period and don't neglect small conflicts and less known military operations. Try to publish unpublished articles, maybe a special sections calling for papers with usual publishing guidelines and rules...

Sort out the conversations page.

    We brought in new Discussions software, and everything is working just fine, now.

When you have a limited amount of issues for any one mag, it would be nice to tell in its area why that is -- mag died after this date, stopped sending you things, etc., so one doesn't wonder.

I think MagWeb.com does an excellent job of providing the service advertised. The index page could be a little more pleasing to the eye, but it is very functional.

I like MagWeb.com, though it's frustrating waiting for MWAN 117 as I know there's an article I really want in it.

This is one of the best investments I have made in a looooong time.

Stop with the personal reviews of events, meetings, conferences, etc. it is a waste of time and space. I just want magazines.

Get more classic Featherstone, Jack Scruby, old Couriers, etc

More color ie uniforms

I don't like the questions about "World events."

Keep up the good work!

Why not include the ads from the mags - especially stuff like the SUTLER'S WAGON in MWAN which I miss. For some with no gaming store for 100 miles, this is the only way to learn about new rules, figures, paints etc...

Your core business is the mags. Focus on putting back issues on-line and forget all the other services. That would allow you to increase the price, though it is high for an internet service.

    25 issues per month for $5 per month (soon to be $6.50) comes out to how much per issue? That would be 20 cents per issue, soon to be about a quarter. Seems pretty reasonable to me, especially because MagWeb.com does offer those other services.

Please try to sign up more of the war/boardgaming fanzines that are published and have been published over the years

Great work. Time has kept me from spending as much time on here recently as I'd like, but the time spent on here is always productive.

I enjoy using MagWeb....it has assisted me on several occassion with doing research. I also utilize MagWeb when preparing wargame scenarios.

Of course I answered the US-centered questions but my answers are those of a bloody foreigner, so left to caution..

Continue and expand interface between active wargamers and military historians who rarely if ever play wargames.

The biggest complaint I have -- and it is not that big -- is that your scanning occasionally misses some words, and this can be irksome in some cases - particularly if the word it should be is not intuitively obvious.

    We've been scanning since 1996, and sadly, many of the files containing typos were from these early efforts. To wit, the OCR package was version 5.0 when we started. We now use version 12.0. One day, if enough people take a subscription, even if it only the 1-week $10 one, we can hire a copy editor to go back through all those issues and edit those files.

    I will point out that since everything is in electronic format, you can always copy the text off the browser and paste it into your word process and run a spell check to get a clean copy.

Again, keep adding issues of out of print magazines

The questions on Battles is to broad for this survrey, My opions about threats are irrevelevent.

For some reason I can't print off complete articles from Magweb mags - it gets to about 3 pages, and then crashes.

    We haven't had problems like those, although for a while I personally had printer file error everytime I tried to print a Word 98 document. I eventually upgraded to Windows XP--that has its own Pandora's box of horrors, but it fixed the printing problem.

I like the down home feel of the editor's chats, book reviews, "bragging." It gives MagWeb a feel somewhat akin to MWAN. One suggestion - offer an annual indexed CD of all articles issued in the past year. Keep up the great work you've Magweb is an excellent service. I start any research I have to do right here. Some of the scans of charts and tables could be clearer. Overall a great value.

    Thank you. We're a small company, so we can offer that personal touch in customer service, etc. And since we own the company, we can be a little outrageous and devilish from time to time to inject some personality (although given 105 magazines, there's *plenty* of personality within)! The CD is an interesting idea, especially since we already have CD creation experience with our music CD "Emperor Triumphant." However, two things: we only license the on-line rights, and, you can already download everything (or just cherry pick the articles you want) in electronic format to your hard drive. Given the increasing reach of broadband access (cable modems, DSL, etc) and cheap and abundant hard drive space, I don't believe the investment in time, effort, and money will be recouped. On-line just plain costs less.

Can you get Wargamer's Digest?

I love the old magazines and articles. Back issues of Lone Warrior, MWAn, Courier etc. How about getting the UK's Society of Ancients wargaming/history CD and offering it via Magweb...and The Slingshot.

I've sold all my old magazines and have decided to use Magweb. I'm very happy with the way things are and will contine to renew.

Great job.

Keep up the good work.

Too new to say.

Polls are fun, and you should do a few every month establish sense community. Get rid of right-wing slant. Automobile donations article - not accurate.

    Good idea regarding polls. This one's a start. Not sure about "right-wing slant" as we post what the magazines publish. I guess dealing with military history and current military situation doesn't attract a lot of "left wing slant" articles within these types of publications. With 35,000+ articles, I'm not sure what auto article you're referring to, but if it was wrong, I expect a letter to the editor in the next issue would clear things up, just as any article where errors or unexpected interpretations creep in become fair game for letters.

Please, please, do something about making the search engine more useful.

    We upgraded to the next version in July. That presumably has helped.

Your political questions presume U.S. citizenship. I am a Canadian and therefore have a slightly different world view. As interesting as the responses may be, I'm not sure the data you're collecting is of any marketing value.

I consider your service to be a model for the new information economy. I will not pay for a site with a single magazine or journal but a "value added" site like Magweb should continue to do well. It would be nice to see if local and state historical publications.

I'm still scratching my head over question 17, it seems like you assume that all of your subscribers are from the USA. And question 23 beggars belief, it implies that if enough people think its ok torture is acceptable. Morally this is a very dangerous.

The political questions you are asking seem so weird. New Zealand currently has troops stationed in -- and dying in -- Timor doing UN work. Fiji and Indonesia figure hign on MY areas of international worry. It is a very different international perspective.

Dump Pakistan at War - self serving crap from a nation that supports terrorism. Who needs it? Limit Sci Fi fantasy- stay away from re-enactors - too much of this on the WEB already.

    Allow me to disagree. PaW and all other MagWeb.com magazines offer a perspective, and the editors of all publications bring facts and interpretations out that our members may or may not enjoy. I will point out that the PaW publisher/editor also publishes WWII Newsletter--I guess that's not self-serving. MagWeb.com has room for many facets of military history and even fun stuff like scifi and re-enacting. With the volume of content we pump out in a given month, we keep everyone awash in articles. Most members cherry pick the ones they are interested in. You don't have to read every article in MagWeb.com, but you can if you want to.

Great service, I could wish for more complete sets of magazines, rather than shotgun effect of issue 45, 58, 72, etc. Plus the biggies like Moves, The General, etc.

I'd like more information about History, Campaigns, Armies etc. and less about Games

    The classic dilemma that always makes us scratch our heads. See next comment.

I subscribe to Magweb for wargame articles. I feel there has been too much emphasis given to history only articles, news events and book reviews lately. I gotten great info from Magweb in the past, but not lately. Still, it is less than the price of print magazines.

    See what I mean. Too much about wargames in one comment. Too little about wargames in the next. I guess we're balancing them out pretty well!

Liked the operation cartwheel download - add more.

Keep up the great work.

The "extras" are a waste. Either you are adding hobby data, or historical data, or you are wasting band width.

    Er, I'm guessing you mean the "Bonus" articles like news items, book reviews, convention reports, WarLore articles, and such? If so, allow me to disagree. All of them add data to MagWeb.com, and make us a better archive.

As a Victorian Colonial lover, I wish there was more available, but that's not your fault. In all, I consider MagWeb a valuable resource and will continue to support it and recommend it to my friends.

A great resource, and a great idea that will stand or fall by the volume and quality of content coming in. Glad you've survived the dot.com collapse. Simple banner ads would be acceptable, but install pop-up or persistant "sticky" ads and you lose.

    I hate those pop-ups with a passion as well. Plus, some of them also carry a little ding of code that streams your system information and where you've been on the web to a marketing company--which I consider a gross invasion of privacy. MagWeb.com NEVER sells, trades, or gives out any customer information, and certainly doesn't install secret code. On my last sweep through my hard drive, I found four of those damn dings, which also slow down your browsing speed, too, by the way.

Good job Russ, your site is one of the best ideas of the Internet-craze period.

How about a section describing world military history in brief. From the earliest beginnings to now.

    Er, like a time line?

I love the service basicly as is.

Over-all, it's fantastic! Proofreading could be improved, but that's minor. It would be nice to do a search just within a particular pub., but this may not be possible. I really like Time Portal Passages' listing the basic contents.

Keep up the good work

I have enjoyed the site for years now and have learned much about the periods I am most interested in without the hassle of ads like when ONEList converted to Yahoo. I hate Yahoo!

Just try to get some of the many UK magizines

Keep up the geat work. Add The Nugget to your list of magazines.

I will never not subscribe.

Open to non english magazines ... italian, french, spanish...

    If they come, we will post. Tough on the language barrier to get started, though. But we'd welcome a contact!

Keep up the good work, Russ! We missed you at Little Wars.

The search engine should be made so one can be more specific when searching.

Nothing much to say, the system works. Did NOT like the world affairs questions in this poll. I do not see why they are at all relevant to Magweb and even less relevant to those of us who live outside the USA.

Since you are thinking about increasing proces, can you look into pricing for subscriptions for individual or groups of magazines. The idea would be allowing someone to get 10 Mags for a certain price.

    The point is that once you're in the archive, everything's available, and at only $5 a month ($6.50 after the first of 2003), it's wonderfully economical and convenient. That is, after all, the cover price of one magazine, and everything is in electronic format so you can copy and paste/download and use immediately.

Can we have some specialist magazines on the ACW like those lucky dogs who like Napoleonics - I mean nice colourful uniforms and lots of articles - there is no justice...

    Like all requests for magazines, I've pitched about 200 or so in the last 7 years, so I'm batting about .500. As the years go on and MagWeb.com grows and becomes better established, it gets a little easier to woo publishers. We'll see.

I like the service

I enjoy it

I don't think the solo content is as up to date as it could be. I like the volume of content and the variety though. Good work.

This is an excellent resource. My only reason for my response in 27 is that I have only a short-term interest in this access.

Keep up the good work, you have saved me hours and days looking for information.

I greatly enjoy your service. Have you ever considered a service that would automatically notify a user if something in his profile were added that month. In other words, the search engine would notify me automatically of any new articles added that month.

Quantity and quality are hard to balance - you do a pretty good job.

Keep it going

Russ keep up the good work. You may want to check question G and H on spending habits seem you can only answer one.

A unique and valuable resource

None

Suggest that more attention be paid to filling in back issues of existing publications i.e. MWAN, Courier, etc. rather than adding new magazines with a more limited audience.

    It's a balance between adding more magazines (as many of the comments noted) and filling in the back issues of existing ones. We're balancing, we're balancing... We started with only 8 magazines (each with a single issue) in 1996, now 105 and soon 106 (with up to 70 issues per magazine). But I hear you.

Re: pricing. Have you thought of an approach where you paid for the articles you wanted to download? Secondly, much of the above is political and American centered - so couldn't see much value in it eg I don't care if you guys have the draft or not.

    Yes. That is one scheme I saw first hand while Editorial Director for AT&T's on-line division in 1995. Here's the dilemma: you can't give a person an article without them paying for it. Once they pay for an article, it might not be the one they want, or they just don't like it. The end result was that customer service was giving out a lot of credits for unwanted articles. I had free access to the service, and it would take me a while to find an article worth paying for (the charge was $2-$2.50 per article).

    My answer was pay one price, read all you want. Actually, it was patterned after Six Flags amusement park where you paid one price and rode all the rides you wanted for the day. If you don't like a few articles, there's tens of thousands more to choose from. No meter is running. No worrying about getting skunked by a bad selection and having to call and get a credit. Let's face it. I can deliver an entire years worth of articles for $5 (soon $6.50) per month, or about a penny an article--how much of a discount can you get on a penny?

MORE MORE MORE!

Great stuff, always on. Keep up the good work.

Still love it...not Charter but LifeTime Member...don't go away on me now...Also, answers above in Country question are for gov't in power currently , not the people as a whole...

You are doing a remarkable job, and I've always felt I've gotten my money's worth.

Excalibur

What on earth do questions 17 to 23 have with military history or wargaming? Frankly I find them slightly sinister.

Search Engine

The questions about US policy have no place here. This is not a US specific site.

I like MAGWEB. It's a great resource, and a chance to read magazines I could probably never find in a store or subscribe to. The only improvement I would like to see is even more magazines.

Keep it up guys -- don't forget us boys in the UK

Thank you for providing otherwise hard to get material.

Need to Complete Sets. For example, SYWA's newsletter should be complete.

    Depends on what the publisher's send. Seven Years War Asso's Jim has been pretty good about getting files and issues to me, but he's only taken over as publisher recently. We get to them as we can.

The search engine athough improved is still weird compared to the other search engines I've used.

I'm pretty pleased by and large, wish you could get more, especially wargames illustrated, love mwan, wish it was more timely, saga, courier-all great as far as I am concerned. Not really interested in your enemy of the United States.

I'm a charter member and have found MagWeb to be tremendously useful over the years. It's a great service and I really appreciate it.

    A Charter Member is someone who joined in 1996.

Great job.

I am not in the least interested in where your executives go or what they are doing or even who they are, but it bothers me when there are no new postings for a week because of some trade show in the back of beyond which you are attending.

    Ah, I guess that's a "no" vote for more convention/conference converage. On the bright side, every trade show means the elves scan and code in overdrive to get everything in place *before* they go away so that the 20-25 issues per month pace can be sustained. This also is true for vacations and holidays. Remember, 86% of members visit our site 2-3 times a week, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. And "batch" postings help us on the back end where if we do our job right, you *never* see or experience. Point, click and what you want now appears on screen. That's back end perfection, and it takes time to do, and moreso when our executives (we're a small company--everyone's an executive) are preparing for a show, traveling to and from a show, or at a show. It's OK that you don't want to hear about MagWeb.com executive exploits, and you can always skip them, but I like to tell folks about the places we've visited, and shows we've supported, and people we've met. But here's the bottom line: From January to October 2002--250 issues on the nose, or, 25 issues per month as promised and delivered, plus....all those other goodies we offer, including convention/conference reports from back of beyond.

My only suggestion would be to jazz up the site some...well as much as possible, without totally killing performance.

    Ah, the rub between eye candy and efficiency. I hear you. And I am guilty of delivering plain pages at killer speed instead of killer pages at pain (slow) speed. In a few years, when broadband makes even further inroads, I can loosen up the size restrictions. There's an old marketing adage about selling the sizzle, not the steak. We're already along that path, but I still code for the steak (dial-up). It will be great when we can forget about bandwidth bottlenecks. Who knows, in a couple of years, some big company will notice us, make an offer, buy us out and put considerable graphics design resources to work--then jack the price up to cover the increased costs. Seriously, I'd like to add more bells and whistles, but the bugaboo of bandwidth still constricts.

Great Job, keep it up.

Excellent resource.

As you can see, a wide range of comments. Thank you all for your feedback! --Russ Lockwood, CEO, MagWeb.com

War, Warfare, and MagWeb.com

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