Updates and the Press Release

I have learnt from bitter experience not to try and launch multiple updates at once. Or at least not to try and launch multiple products in a synchronised manner. There is too much pressure, too much to get wrong, and too much to coordinate.

Given that experience, we still went ahead and launched four updates this last week. The updates went well enough with only a couple of blips in the process that demanded additional attention.

The most significant update was for Power Manager. This update changed a lot of the underlying way we package and install the product; for the user we made sure nothing too dramatic changed. These shifts in technology are always more concerning than the more traditional addition of new features.

Power Manager’s update included a dedicated press release. It has been months since our last press release and in that time MacUP has closed.

MacUP was a notable German Mac magazine. They had always been supportive of my work at DssW and I was saddened to see the press release e-mail bounce back. I was not aware they had closed.

Running a technology magazine these days must be tough, if not financially impossible, without branching out into other more profitable realms to support the business. Building other profitable sides to a business is not trivial and hindsight is not helpful in suggesting what could have been done.

I have been running DssW long enough to have seen many different magazines, and journalists, come and go. The outlook does not appear positive for any computer related print magazine – particularly those aimed at the consumer market. Consumers are too well served by the Internet and sites offering seemingly free reviews, contents, and editorials.

I wonder about the value of our press releases. The traffic they generate and audience they attract is all watched through our analytics, so I have some measure, but they just feel less critical than once they did.

I have no definitive answer and I have no plans to have DssW stop issuing press releases, but they are no longer a large source of post launch traffic.