What the hell happened to Digit ??

Digit (or previously Chip) was the premier magazine for techies back on early 2000s. IT revolution was sweeping across the nation and DIGIT was at the forefront of providing knowledge, tips and education on technology.
Then the rise of internet happened.
And what did DIGIT do?
Virtually Nothing!
Oh, well they upgraded their website with big thumbnails and super outdated reviews. But thats about it.
Yet still.....
Cant they hire some tech journalists to post 3-4 articles per person per week?
Cant they cover tech news from around the world?
Cant they send their journalists to tech shows like CES? Our local Indian youtubers can do it then why cant a company like DIGIT?

And Why is DIGIT still stuck with its magazine business? Why arent they focusing on their Youtube channel? A teenage Indian with ONE dinky gadget review video gets more views than TEN professional reviews from Digit. W....T.....F
 

icebags

Technomancer
indian mindset typically lacks technical vision and shifts more towards business profit and loss.

digit is (at least was) most popular among college students. if they had more technical articles, career & technical guidance, and interactive sessions (contests, featuring articles from reader write ins etc), than plain & simple reviews and reports those are easily available on internet, then it would have been more lively.

but i know some guys are trying stuff. anorion said they are going to get interviews from isro staff to motivate youngsters on the track. but i am not in touch with print media for long, i will need to find out what happened afterwards.
 

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
Yeah, I personally wanted to read something like Doctor Dobbs Journal or something that covers the trends in the IT industry. India being a hotbed of IT, something like this could be popular and as an IT professional myself I could find something like this useful.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
 

cute.bandar

Cyborg Agent
I can see what you mean.
My guess is that there is lack a geek / nerd / tinkerer culture in our whole desi world, not just digit. Arguably one may say that the market doesn't really care about technicalities and is more interested in shiny stuff. But keeping that aside and loving the tech for tech sake is what makes a geek 'geek'
 
Digit still sells their magazines well, I suppose. Chip & PCQuest are dead or non-existent in stands last time I checked (2018).

I'm sure their websites won't have everything as they want people to buy magazine for latest news. I used to buy their magazine regularly till 2012, afterwards I used to buy them only when I'm traveling as my internet connection was better. My last mag purchase was 3-4 years ago.

It's true they should update their website & focus on youtube but I'm sure they have a lot more staff than any youtube channel or other tech media outlets like GSMArena or android authority. So maybe they are still hanging on to the magazines & don't want to give away stuff based on small ad revenues. Future of magazines doesn't seem good with the rising internet penetration in India, so they need to do something.
 

Randy_Marsh

Youngling
People hardly read mags nowadays, and the demand will go down to 0 pretty soon. It is important for any business to change themselves with time. Look at Playboy, they now generate a lot of digital media side to its existing mag lineup even when it was/is so popular and have heavy dominance in the market. Still they are making changes to their mag content to suit the current needs and investing heavily on digital content.
Digit already has good name and fan base in the country. They need to up their digital game and stop focusing so much on their magazines. Any review of theirs are outdated by the time they print it, a hard truth that they need to understand.
 

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
They also have their website which is pretty regularly updated last I checked. If they can get a Youtube channel with some charismatic guy or gal, they can drum up a lot of views (and ad revenue).
 

rhitwick

Democracy is a myth
I think they are quite right on track.
At present only one technical magazine on the market (there may be few others but their market share is negligible compared to Digit).

I think, having an youtube channel would be great. Specially they can integrate the mag reviews with hands-on videos of the same review (Specially; unboxing, how-to, game play reviews would be really nice).

Reminds me of Rajiv Makhani from NDTV. Dude has got his own followers (army) and quite popular. Whenever I see his videos, only thing that comes to mind is "This should have been Digit"!
 
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Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
PCQuest is still around, but yes, we are the top tech magazine in India
Readership is increasing, and so is magazine readership, if you consider Indian Readership Survey 2017
*i.imgur.com/Lzva3yn.jpg
So "nobody reads magazines any more" is not really true
In areas with spotty internet connections and frequent blackouts, are DVDs are still the most reliable source of getting updates and data
Older readers prefer the curation and peace of mind of not having to deal with malware
Geek is our portal for discerning audiences, with a clean, no frills interface
Our main news portal, Digit.in is the top independent technology news site in the country

Our reporters did go to CES (2 of us), and while we have a dedicated video team, you must understand that the strengths of the edit team is writing text, which we use to simplify complex technologies, put products through the rigorous and unbiased test process, and report on the latest developments around the world. Most of the YouTube video stars only get the gadgets if they promise to tell good things about them. We do have a YouTube channel, and in fact were one of the earliest to start with Digit TV back in in 2010.

Everyone in the company loves the brand, and all the people who work on both the online and magazine teams were avid readers and technology enthusiasts. Of course, we acknowledge that there is a lot of work to be done, so anyone is welcome to send us constructive feedback to editor [at] digit.in, esp with the YouTube stuff and other comments.
 

bssunilreddy

Chosen of the Omnissiah
Digit needs to move to different foray like e-magazines but paid like which can be read in e-readers.
SKOAR used to be great in those days. We used to wait for it to arrive and play all those demo games provided with it.
I think Digit needs to move to reddit type forums because we have to move with time.
 

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
I think Digit needs to move to reddit type forums because we have to move with time.
This.
While I do think forum have it's own place, I do like to think that as far as "interactions" goes, Reddit style is the best. You can sh!it post more often, without caring "as much" about going off topic, since everyone comment on other's post, and nesting of those posts helps in keeping the on topic posts on track, while still letting anyone discuss anything at that moment.
And while we could have our very own r/apnadigit or something (since r/digit is taken), it's better to have our very own forum, but customized like Reddit. (Is that possible?).

Also, why is r/digitIndia private? Seems to be made for digit.in. Is this being used privately by digit mag staff?
 

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
This.
While I do think forum have it's own place, I do like to think that as far as "interactions" goes, Reddit style is the best. You can sh!it post more often, without caring "as much" about going off topic, since everyone comment on other's post, and nesting of those posts helps in keeping the on topic posts on track, while still letting anyone discuss anything at that moment.
And while we could have our very own r/apnadigit or something (since r/digit is taken), it's better to have our very own forum, but customized like Reddit. (Is that possible?).

Also, why is r/digitIndia private? Seems to be made for digit.in. Is this being used privately by digit mag staff?
I don't really agree. Many forums like XDA, IVG and many others still get lot more traffic than us, even though they are not a reddit-format discussion forum.
 
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Raaabo

The Dark Lord
Staff member
Admin
The magazine is literally the smallest of our properties now. It's there and it's the most read tech mag in India for the past 18 years, but we have diversified into far more.

The site is a much bigger monster and we have had a YouTube channel much before Indians were even watching anything on there. Everything is updated regularly, and we cover CES and other shows as well Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018 | Latest Videos, News & Coverage | Digit.in

But hey, if you didn't know all that, then we are sucking at letting you know that we're doing all this, and that's a concern. We should definitely work on fixing that.
 
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sriharsha_madineni

Cyborg Agent
Logged in after eons, was thinking in the same lines as OP and viola there is a thread where someone has put those thoughts into words.
Digit is what kick started the passion & was my only source to the wealth of knowledge in the dial up days.

Was a subscriber for the mag for almost a decade and I still re-read them for nostalgia sake.
Can't say the same about home page, things kept going south till it became too cluttered and I stopped visiting.

Edit: Visited again just now and my opinion still remains the same, page layout is too cluttered.
 

cute.bandar

Cyborg Agent
Reddit Good: Multiple conversations in single thread. Bad: Everything else.

But hey, if you didn't know all that, then we are sucking at letting you know own that we're doing all this, and that's a concern. We should definitely work on fixing that.
Digit - Less than 1000 views for most videos ! Those are not technical enough for my liking, but for something like digit they are wayyyyy too less.
 
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