This is kinda tech related, since Cargo had a big personal
technology section -- from which I will no longer be getting contracts :-(
Apparently the word just went out around an hour ago, and virtually no one on staff knew -- even, according to rumor, the EIC.
I'm not sure about the rumor, but I did just talk with Tom Samiljan, the former technology editor, who confirmed that Cargo is closing and that it came as a complete surprise to him and his co-workers.
Farewell Cargo, we will miss you!
Sure it was a little flashy and pretentious. But it was a very quick read with some really good advice on everything from wine to hair gel to bluetooth. I actually worked for one magazine, IDG's Digital World, that very consciously borrowed stylistic ideas from Cargo. Of course, Digital World folded even sooner.
The real sadness here from a technology standpoint is that good sources of consumer advice on tech are fading away just as technology becomes truly pervasive.
The NY Times' Circuits section was eviscerated a while ago. PC World (where I once worked) is far smaller than it used to be. I'm not sure of PC Magazine's numbers, but it is hitched to the financially disastrous millstone of Ziff Davis, so that's not a good sign.
Sync, a magazine that tried to be like Cargo but was far dorkier, did exactly what its name sounded like.
C/net is always reorganizing, and it closed sold off Computer Shopper
-- which was thicker than a phone book back in the dotcom 1.0 days. It took a
while after the acquisition for c/net to murder Shopper, but it finally
succeeded. And then c/net lost a bunch of people to Yahoo's upcoming
c/net-esque reviews site. I suppose that's the only sing of growth - Yahoo.
OK, gotta go check the help wanted ads…
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