MSDN Magazine Overload
I was interested to see the edge of a shrink-wrapped magazine in my mailbox at work this morning . . . until I pulled out the magazine and realized it was another copy of MSDN's July issue. This is the 3rd copy of this that I've gotten in the mail, and while I'm happy to have the information, I don't really need three printed copies of it all. This has been happening for a number of months, so this isn't just an anomalous month!
I realize that through conference registrations for DevScovery and TechEd, and the role I play in the WeProgram.Net user group, I'm privy to a complementary subscription for a year or so . . . but I didn't think MSDN Magazine would just ship duplicate magazine issues my way each month. And then duplicates of the duplicates! I'm betting I'm not the only one in this situation.
I've been giving the magazine to coworkers and our user group has an ample number of people who like to take the free magazine, so I'm not complaining so much as observing that MSDN Magazine is not in the business of making money so much as they are in spreading the gospel according to Microsoft development. I have it on good authority that MS Press is not a lucrative publishing effort, and I suppose MSDN Magazine falls under the same umbrella (although sponsor ads probably generate some nice revenue for the magazine). Microsoft likes having the channel to the developer community that MSDN Mag provides and I don't blame them for it; this explains why we see posts like this one questioning the content choices of the magazine . . . MSDN magazine is going to generally be “on message” and in sync with the Microsoft public direction.
So, the moral of the story is twofold:
- Don't take a gift MSDN Magazine issue for granted (there's usually good content in there and if you get duplicates, they make good -- albeit small -- user group giveaways).
- Recognize the source of the “journalism“ in MSDN and take it with a grain of salt. I've learned lots of interesting things from reading MSDN, but I've also skipped over articles on things like Web Classes (anybody remember those?) and close MS Passport integration. Take it with a grain of salt!
Happy .Netting!