BYTE Is Coming Back 185
harrymcc writes "More than a dozen years after its death, BYTE magazine is still the most beloved computer magazine of all time — the one that employees of every other tech mag got used to being compared unfavorably with. And now it's being revived, in the form of a new BYTE.com. The new version isn't replicating the focus of the old BYTE — it's focused on the use of consumer tech products in a business environment — and I'm pretty positive it won't feature Robert Tinney's art or epic Jerry Pournelle columns. But I'm glad to see the legendary brand back in use rather than sitting in limbo."
"Reviving" Brands (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a whole industry dedicated to trading on familiar names to sell new (and completely unrelated) ventures. Why waste years building credibility when you can buy it?
IOW, if its not the same BYTE, its not the same BYTE. Does anyone really care about the "brand" so much that they are excited to see it back in use regardless of what that use is?
Re:Jerry Pournelle (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking of ego and nostalgia, I was also reminded of the story about how Jerry Pournelle got kicked off of the ARPAnet [stormtiger.org].
Nice to see it revived, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wrote for BYTE back in the mid-1980s. Nowadays, if I mention that to most people, they look at me curiously -- probably get the same reaction if I told them I had published articles in Colliers.
And, no, any current incarnation won't be the same as back then, but the personal computing industry has changed massively since then; it's been through at least two crashes (1988-90 and, of course, 2000-2004), and the technology is on a whole different level now -- both the hardware and the system software is less accessible than it was back then. The real barrier, though, is the advertisers. BYTE in the mid-80s sometimes got up to 600 pages per issue total size, because there were so many advertisers willing to chase after its readers. (Cf. the 1988-90 tech crash.) Trying to create an updated version of that BYTE might be possible, but I'm not sure who would advertise in it. ..bruce..