yoyo magizines

General Yo-Yo
21

Would it be easy? No.

Would it instantly (or ever, really) sell as well as TIME? No.

Do I personally have the resources and the hook-up to do it myself? No, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I would give it a shot if I did. In fact, after I graduate college I just might give it a shot.

Chance of success? Slim.

It’s true…VERY true actually, that its success would be slow because of all of the information available on the internet. The simple fact is, a yo-yo magazine would take a long time to become a “profitable” gig. To that I say: So what?

Their are hundreds (if not thousands around the world) of magazines around the world that publish information that is already available on the net, and I’m not talkin’ about the “web editions” either.

Take a quick look at Game Informer. It is one of dozens of video game magazines out there that publishes information that can be found everywhere on the net for free. The magazine is particularly successful because it tries it’s hardest to bring exclusive content and interviews to it’s readers. That’s the kind of thing that would work. Just remember that I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard work, I just think all the work would pay off.

1 Like
22

Yoyoing really isn’t bigger than it was a few years ago… the online community ‘maybe’ but overall, not really.

When the yo-yo magazines happened, it was 10 years ago and yo-yos had the largest boom in all of history… sales were hundreds of times bigger than now, companies were blowing through millions of yoyos.

Guess what happened? They still failed, miserably… they had money and a lack of internet competition, still never had a chance.

Kyle

1 Like
23

Yeah, this is mostly truth.

The big boom in the late nineties was, statistically, the best time to try this. Looking back, I think “Fiend” (if anyone remembers that rag) had the best chance. You don’t see it on shelves anymore, do you?

A lot of people have tried to attribute the advent of the internet as the final “nail in the coffin” for such publications, and I tentatively disagree. Sure, there was a lot of yo-yo information out there on the 'net, just as there is today. I won’t argue that. But if the internet was even moderately responsible for dooming these periodicals, why on earth do magazines still enjoy great followings today?

JM gives some great examples. Game Informer is a great video gaming rag. It’s certainly not giving you anything you can’t find quicker (and arguably better) on the internet, and yet it thrives. Time Magazine? Yeah, same thing. We could go on all night.

I think that even during the “good years” of throwing, there just weren’t enough of us participating in the hobby to keep the finances of a publishing company up and running.

The two examples JM cites, Game Informer and Time, have circulations in the millions. If millions of people are interested in a subject, a magazine will do well.

Even in the late nineties, what would the subscriber numbers for a yo-yo periodical look like? 10K? 15K tops?

This doth not a profitable publication make.

Edit: Or maybe it was a matter of substance? For everything “Fiend” tried to be, it had plenty of it’s own failings. The magazine had a tendency to be quite a bit biased in it’s reviews. It also tended to present yo theory and tricks in McBride’s “Yonomicon” nomenclature, a system that was on the verge of being antiquated when it was published, let alone now.

Who knows, really?