I guess we knew this day would come. I'm surprised they didn't just decide to sell it back. Perhaps Derek would want to keep running it? They were pioneers in identifying the Flickr/dSLR aesthetic, and there remains a void there in the coming HD dSLR video revolution...
This reminds me a lot of the power struggle behind GovWorks if anyone has ever seen the documentary Startup.com. One founder wanted to keep things true, transparent, and stick to the roots while the other wanted to go big, change the way things worked and in the end the more passive ended up walking away. It's kind of depressing how these stories all end the same: the company goes bottom up
Clarifications in The Unofficial JPG Magazine Group on Flickr, thread started by Paul Cloutier 2007-05-17
730 words from Paul Cloutier about what happened with the JPG blowup. Still doesn't explain why the first 6 issues are still missing from the issues page, why the official 8020 blog is still full of lies, etc.
"context is everything", a discussion thread in The Unofficial JPG Magazine Group, started 2007-05-16
1200 words from Alana, the wife of Paul Cloutier, adding no new information to the scandal over Paul deleting the old JPG issues and rewriting history, but calling Derek Powazek a liar. Derek responds in 650 more words.
Derek's Departure, from Paul Cloutier, via 8020 Publishing Blog
200 words subtly announcing his decision to back off on rewriting JPG Magazine's history, without acknowledging that it was his dishonesty that led to Derek's departure or providing an alternate explanation.
The Real Story of JPG Magazine, from Derek Powazek, 2007-05-14
1500 words on JPG Magazine/8020/Paul Cloutier's new campaign of lying and rewriting history. "People are too smart and well-connected to believe a lie anymore." JPG published nice photos from Flickr etc. on paper.
tagged decentralization-stories communication 8020 fraud paul-cloutier jpg
I'm also kind of bummed out by this news. These guys were paying ZERO for their content and they still couldn't make it work.
Also, I agree that there's something odd about them not just going web-only + a pay fee for super users. How many people do you need to run that site? 3?
I did not post this to celebrate another failure (as an entrepreneur, I would never do that). I'm mostly just sad that they're not able to break even and continue. And I wonder why they couldn't drop the print magazine and have their loyal members pay to be part of the community. I have to imagine they would if given the chance.
Pingmag ( http://pingmag.jp/ ), a very popular Japanese design magazine (possibly only online, unsure, but it had a stagg), also stopped publishing just now under similar circumstances.
I think a lot of this is unnecessary. Publications, people, heck everything needs to transition in times like these. Everyone needs to become more agile, more efficient and businesses need to cut things down to the bone. Unfortunately a lot of magazines, professional blogs, whatever, are still paying crazy rates and aren't cutting back.. so more will be going to the wall in 3.. 2.. 1..
I'm working on starting up a magazine, so I guess I'll be able to learn from everything that went down at JPG magazine. Maybe refine my business model a bit.
http://powazek.com/posts/534