Mac Publishing Drops MacWeek, Moves MacCentral.com To Macworld.com [Updated]

by , 7:55 PM EST, March 2nd, 2001

Mac Publishing LLC, the owners of MacCentral, MacWeek, Macworld, and a joint venture of Ziff Davis and International Data Group (IDG), has announced that MacWeek will be folded into MacCentral.com. The company cites the need to streamline their operations, and has eliminated 8 staff members from the organization. The changes go into effect as of next Monday, March 5th. Late last week, maccentral.com traffic was redirected to maccentral.macworld.com. According to Mac Publishing LLC:

In a move to streamline operations, Mac Publishing, L.L.C. announced it will consolidate two of its Macintosh-related Web sites, integrating the content of MacWEEK.com into MacCentral.com as of Monday, March 5th, 2001.

Company executives said the reorganization of online operations would result in a staff reduction of approximately 8.5 percent, or about seven people. None of Mac Publishing's other divisions are or will be affected.

"It was a difficult decision," stated Colin Crawford, President and CEO of Mac Publishing, L.L.C. "However, in today's market, it no longer makes sense for us to spread our resources among three news products."

"We believe we can meet the needs of the Macintosh community more efficiently through the headline news on MacCentral.com and the more in-depth coverage on Macworld.com," he added. "We are providing all affected employees with severance packages, as well as assistance with finding new jobs."

Mac Publishing also publishes Macworld magazine, its flagship monthly journal, covering all aspects of products related to Macintosh personal computers. The company is an independent entity and unrelated to Apple Computer, Inc. MacWEEK launched in 1987 as a weekly print trade publication.

In 1997, MacWEEK was acquired as part of a joint venture between Ziff Davis and International Data Group, thereby creating Mac Publishing, L.L.C. In 1998, Mac Publishing decided to retain the MacWEEK brand as a Web-only publication to continue providing industry news analysis for the Macintosh computing market.

Andrew Gore, Editor-in-Chief of Macworld Magazine, has published a piece called "Requiem for a Magazine." Only MacWeek is running the announcement as of press time, and the above press release was sent out over Business Wire.

Update: Mac Publishing LLC President and CEO Colin Crawford told The Mac Observer in reference to our questions about the nature of the move:

As noted, the news analysis that was MacWEEK's strength will continue in both MacCentral and Macworld.com. You will continue to see many familiar names.

As noted in our Spin, it is unclear which staff members will remain with the newly organized publications.

The Mac Observer Spin:

This press release says that MacWeek.com is being folded into MacCentral, but sources close to the situation tell us that all of MacWeek's staff is effectively being let go. This would indicate that MacWeek is actually being shutdown as opposed to folded into MacCentral, but that could be an iussue of interpretation. MacCentral will still be an separate publication, though the last vestiges of being grassroots may have gone by the wayside.

It seems that Mac Publishing is trying to cut costs and consolidate traffic to the macworld.com domain in the face of decreasing advertising revenues that have rocked the entire online industry. By cutting the costs of publishing MacWeek, and sending all MacCentral traffic to macworld.com, the company can present a better picture to potential advertisers. These are issues that face the entire Mac Web, but with the size of the Ziff-Davis owned Mac Publishing LLC organization, the issues are compounded accordingly. The same issues have hit the other large Mac publshing house, Imagine Media, as that magazine has cut some of their publications and reduced staff at MacAddict.com.

We are sorry to see MacWeek go. It represents the end of an era as Mr. Gore discusses in his tribute piece. It's too bad that this has to be the case, and we wish those employees who have been let go the best of luck in their future endeavors. This is not something that really benefits the Mac community as such in our opinion, but Mac Publishing is a business and has to be run as one. MacWeek will be missed.

MacCentral