[Paddlewise] Magazines

Nick wrote;
(Assorted snips)
>However, I doubt that these sort of draws will have any long-term holding 
>power over an
>individual paddler. After they have all the stuff, or learned all the
>tricks, it is whether or not they actually enjoy paddling that will
>keep them paddling.

Makes sense to me.

> After awhile kayaks-for-wilderness and wilderness-for-kayaking would start 
> to merge.

Possibly and probably good if they would. The question seems to become how 
to acomplish that and, from a magazines standpoint, would it pay.

>I don't buy the lack of instant gratification idea. Again, look at
>surfing. I have never tried to stand up on a small chunk of styrofoam
>in big water, but I am under no illusion that  I would be ripping up
>waves my first time out. People are willing to take a lot of time to
>get good at a sport. And still looking at surfing, if the excitement of
>surfing is what people want people can get exactly that in a kayak.
>I've spent many a fun day surfing. If it can be sold to board surfers,
>it can be sold to kayakers.

May not have made myself clear. I did not mean that surfing provided instant 
gratification but that the mass market sought instant gratification. 
Surfing, I believe provides more excitment. Should have used more care in 
keeping the two issues separate.

>From my observations of surfing and surfers up here it does not appear to 
suit the mass market unless ones idea of the mass market includes sitting 
out in the ocean on a board in sub-zero weather searching for the ideal 
wave. Of course, maybe things differ in the sunny warm south. As for a 
comparison between surfing kayaks and surfing on a board it seems to me that 
for sheer excitement the board surfers appear to get more bang for their 
buck and time. The fellow that runs the surf shop also paddles and runs 
kayak tours. I will chat with him about this to get his opinion.

>As someone who believes in quantitative, empirical analysis, I must
>admit that the good professor may be on to something. Judging the
>quality of a magazine based on the number of articles written by the
>professor sounds like a good, non-subjective metric.

Do you mean more articles means "good quality" or more articles means "poor 
quality"? :-)

Cheers

John Winters
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