.net pulls the plug

Wdd Logo.
September 19, 2013
.net pulls the plug.

thumbnailThe blogosphere exploded today at the news that .net magazine, the publication that many of us began our careers reading, has pulled the plug on its online offering.

The print magazine will continue to publish, but netmagazine​.com is no more.

From now on, much of .net’s news will be published via Creativebloq​.com, a site just a year old (and owned by the publishers of .net, Computer Arts and 3D World).

Established in 1994, .net has been running online since 2010 and it’s unclear exactly what has prompted this move. We know that a variety of newspapers have declared online publishing unviable and moved their content behind paywalls. Whilst we have no way of confirming, it seems highly likely that .net was losing paper sales to its online offering.

Whether .net can be successful in its new home remains to be seen. And it seems strange, given their relative brand values, that creativebloq should absorb .net, rather than the other way around.

According to .net’s twitter account, it was simply no longer viable to keep running:

Reality check: @netmag is run by 5 people and @creativebloq has 6. We are moving over as much as we can, but also do print, digital, confs..

500 .net articles have been transplanted to their new home, but that is less than 5% of the articles netmagazine​.com was previously hosting.

So what does this mean? Well, for readers, you’ll no longer have access to 95% of the archive of .net articles; for anyone who has ever linked to a .net article, your link is now broken, unless you were linking to one of the lucky 5%; and for anyone who ever wrote for .net, your article is probably gone — hopefully you kept a print copy.

The ultimate irony is that in the end, a magazine that has spent twenty years devoted to the web, was unable to make it work.

Do magazine’s have a place online or is print best? Will .net prosper, or fade away? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Featured image/​thumbnail uses plug image and desk image via Shutterstock.

WDD Staff

WDD staff are proud to be able to bring you this daily blog about web design and development. If there’s something you think we should be talking about let us know @DesignerDepot.

Read Next

Are Simple Websites Better For Business?

As web design technologies raise the bar on what it is possible to achieve on a realistic budget, there’s a rising deba…

Apple Opts for AR over VR at WWDC

An Apple VR headset has been one of the most widely-rumored devices of the last few years, and it was finally settled a…

Exciting New Tools for Designers, June 2023

We’re halfway through 2023 already, and the number of incredible apps, tools, and resources for designers is mounting.

3 Essential Design Trends, June 2023

This month we are focusing on three trends within a bigger website design trend – different navigation menu styles and …

15 Best New Fonts, May 2023

The choices you make when selecting a typeface have more impact on your design than almost any other decision, so it’s …

10+ Best Tools & Resources for Web Designers and Agencies (2023 updated)

Having the ability to envision a tastefully designed website (i.e., the role creativity plays) is important. But being …

20 Best New Websites, May 2023

This month, there are tons of great new agency websites to get excited about. 3D animated prisms are a popular theme, a…

How to Find the Right White Label Website Builder for Your Agency

Web design agencies face a lot of obstacles in closing the deal with new clients. One of the most common ones is the ar…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, May 2023

There are hundreds of new tools for designers and developers released each month. We sift through them all to bring you…

3 Essential Design Trends, May 2023

All three of the website design trends here mimic something bigger going on in the tech space, from a desire to have mo…

10 Best AI Tools for Web Designers (2023)

It’s time to stop worrying if AI is going to take your job and instead start using AI to expand the services you can of…

10 Best Marketing Agency Websites (Examples, Inspo, and Templates!)

Marketers are skilled in developing strategies, producing visual assets, writing text with high impact, and optimizing …