My fantasy gift: T&FN on CD-ROM

[TrackCEO]

Hey, gh

I have $50 burning a hole in my wallet. It's yours if you do this:

Produce and sell a CD-ROM containing every issue of T&FN up through the 2008 season.

I already own 30-plus years of the print edition, but I find it a tedious nuisance to pull down my boxes and flip though hundreds of pages just to find one tidbit on an athlete. (I know it's there SOMEWHERE!)

Many masters stars of today were elites of yesteryear, but the Net didn't start covering them until the late 1990s. Even though magazines like Sports Illustrated have begun putting all their old stuff online, it's still hit-and-miss.

So why doesn't T&FN do what The New Yorker and National Geographic have done -- scan all issues and put 'em on a CD?!

The New Yorker charges $40 for a set of CDs covering 500,000 pages. For $180, The New Yorker has a portable hard drive with 60-plus years of its content. It's easily searchable and printable. You even can look at every cover over the years.

http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/books_ ... middle.asp
http://www.cartoonbank.com/survey/0831_ ... index.html

National Geographic does the same, and even has separate CDs of its famous maps and a travel planner.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/cdrom/
http://www.gtpcc.org/gtpcc/nationalgeographic.htm

GH, you know how valuable this old stuff is -- to historians, tracknuts, journalists and bloggers alike. We'll gladly pay for this.

I don't know how you go about creating a CD with this material, but maybe you can contact the same folks who did this for The New Yorker and Natl. Geo.

Don't leave good money on the table!

K E N

[Marlow]

Sounds good, but perhaps it costs more to create the Master CD than they would recoup in sales? Unlike you, however, I prefer my hardcopies of the issues (back 50 years now).

[tandfman]

Sounds good, but perhaps it costs more to create the Master CD than they would recoup in sales?

I suspect there is some price at which this might make economic sense for T&FN, but my guess it would be far more than $50. I'd buy one, assuming the price didn't turn out to be insane. I'd certainly expect to spend a lot more than $50 for it.

[Marlow]

I'd certainly expect to spend a lot more than $50 for it.

Not to give away state secrets, but even I, an ultra-T&FNphile, would probably be intimidated by more than $100. If it were more than that, I don't think they'd recoup their cost. I have it all on micro-film - how many people bought that?

[Cooter Brown]

Rolling Stone did this for their 40 year anniversary last year. They were so obsessive with details they even scanned the cardboard subscription inserts and anything else that was mailed with the magazine.

It is an awesome product, IMHO. I look at it often and it has a pretty decent search engine software included that allows you to search the archives.

I think it cost $70 last year and I saw it at Costco a while back for under $40.

[TrackCEO]

I suspect there is some price at which this might make economic sense for T&FN, but my guess it would be far more than $50.

OK, my wallet is now burning with $100.

I'm serious. 8-)

K E N

[Mighty Favog]

I get paid round about $200 for announcing HS meets in the spring. I'd send that check off to Mountain View in a heartbeat for this.

And how much would I spend for complete Track Newsletter on CD? Maybe not my whole coaching paycheck, but a significant portion thereof.

I'm upping the bids because I recall gh once emphatically saying no to this idea.

[Marlow]

And how much would I spend for complete Track Newsletter on CD? Maybe not my whole coaching paycheck, but a significant portion thereof.

OK, here's my final bid: the entirety of T&FN, TN, and all issues of "Track Coach" and I'm in for $200 (do it for Xmas and I'll extort it out of my wife!)

[gm]

Nice idea, not economically feasible.