MWJ Delivers the best Macintosh information at affordable prices.

Computer information flows through a Web-centric culture. We paid for computers, we paid for Internet connections, we (sometimes) paid for browsers, and we (sometimes) feel that ought to be enough. Dozens of Web sites, ranging from those run by individuals to professional efforts from large computer media firms, deliver news for free each day. So why, praytell, would you want to pay US$14.95 per month for a weekly newsletter?

Because it's worth it. There can be no other reason, and we hope to show you that MWJ passes that test.

Daily Sites Vary in Quality

You might wonder why you should pay for a newsletter like MWJ when so many daily Mac OS-based Web sites provide the news for free. MWJ is worth its price because it provides far more than you'll find on any Web site, or collection of Web sites.

The depth of information available through the Web is remarkably inconsistent. Some Web sites seem to cover nearly every announcement under the sun, but limit their reporting to rehashing announcements they received. That restricts you to reading summarized press releases and wire service copy, and you may already know how accurate the national media's track record is with Apple Computer.

Those sites that do provide analysis generally do so on a limited basis - only every few weeks, or limited to a particular target market (such as CreativePro's focus on graphics and publishing professionals), or filled with opinion that can't be backed with facts.

You could read a dozen or more sites five days a week to try to grasp the big picture on a story, or you can let MWJ do it for you. Our staff reads everything it can find - not only Web pages, but also wire service reports, press releases, private announcements and more besides. We condense the week's biggest stories, including the ones you might not have seen elsewhere but which deserve mention, into an explanatory, skimmable, organized collection of news, analysis, announcements and explanation that you won't find anywhere else. When those sites have more information that's useful, we refer you to them, and we encourage you to visit them - that way, their advertisers get exposure and the revenue helps those sites continue their work.

But advertising can be tricky in itself. One extremely popular Macintosh-related Web site (now owned by a larger company) shocked some of its readers in 1996 by posting prices for companies that wanted their products examined in special week-long features, or reviewed on the site's main page, or otherwise spotlighted in ways that many readers had assumed were based on product merit, not advertising budget.

Other sites exist to promote specific companies, consulting firms, books or periodicals, or other products for you to purchase. A few years ago, several popular Macintosh Web sites pressured a leading Macintosh Web software development firm to abandon a product because it let organizations filter out banner advertisements - the source of their revenue. The proposition changed from advertising paying for production to the news outlets actually dictating what could exist. That company never made another new Macintosh software product, by the way.

MWJ makes the proposition clearer. We accept no advertisements and answer only to our subscribers, who fund our coverage through their subscriptions. We point you to relevant source material while reducing the technobabble and the hype to realistic levels.

And, most significantly of all, each MWJ issue contains feature articles - in-depth analysis, technical tutorials, answers to reader questions - that are unique to this publication. Their quality and clarity have won fans around the world, and you simply cannot read them in any place, Web or otherwise, except in MWJ.

MWJ is International-Friendly

Those readers outside the US have probably noticed that information about the Macintosh tends to assume readers live in North America. We try not to do that.

For example, all monetary figures include identifiers designating the country as well as the currency, such as US$1999 or A$37.50. The plain-text format MWJ offers transfers well across international systems, and the PDF version easily prints on A4-sized paper. We try to avoid listing "toll-free" telephone numbers that are anything but toll-free outside North America. Maybe that's part of why MWJ readers span the globe and cover both hemispheres, pretty much any way you divide the earth in two.

However, the biggest problem in some non-US countries could be the lack of universal flat-rate Internet service. International readers may need the same information as fast as US readers, but may not be able to justify the expense of searching a few dozen Web sites for news beyond that of a press release, or for an in-depth article about a topical subject. MWJ provides those essentials each and every week, and it's delivered directly to your electronic mailbox. You don't have to go searching for anything, except to follow up on information we present with our copious cross-references. It's the perfect accessory for someone who doesn't have the time or inclination to search the Web for information that might not even be there.

MWJ Tells You What No Other Source Does

Sure, MWJ is convenient, and has nice articles, and might even make you laugh once in a while. The real value, however, is in the knowledge. MWJ covers stories no other publication touches, and as like its professional cousin MDJ, continues a tradition of debunking, demythologizing and deconstructing the most complex problems in the Macintosh today. Look at these successes from both MDJ and MWJ:

• Since 1996, MDJ and MWJ have taken on the biggest subjects in the Macintosh world. Our expose of the fallacies behind the Software Publisher's Association "data program" helped bring it to an end, killing years of "Apple Software Sales Falling" press releases that may have had no basis in fact. MWJ has led the campaign demanding that Apple document Mac OS X updates, one that has resonated in Cupertino. From tracking advertising's effects on Mac media to monitoring the powerful individuals, MWJ leads the way.
  
  
• MWJ regularly goes into Apple technology, both the newest (like Mac OS X maintenance releases) and the most fundamental (from Unix and Carbon to the classic Mac OS File Manager). When new components like the PowerPC G5 and major Mac OS X updates appear on the horizon, MWJ tells you what they mean and what they don't mean - usually weeks ahead of other publications' less comprehensive stories. (Our Panther preview was an issue in itself, unequaled by any contemporary competitor.)
  
  
• MWJ answers your questions. The regular "Ask the Staff" feature is one of the journal's most popular entries, because it keeps us directly in touch with and responsible to your needs, your concerns and your problems. All kinds of periodicals answer user-level questions, particularly the kind that can be solved by adding a shareware extension. MWJ takes on the tough issues because you ask us to. (Ever meet a publication before MWJ that advised you not to perform a "clean install?")
  
  
• We do it with style. MWJ skewers the self-important, insults the overbearing, crushes the foolhardy and destroys those who would promote themselves instead of the truth to the detriment of the Macintosh platform in which you are heavily invested. Panicky claims of doom are methodically deconstructed, biased rumblings of gloom are exposed to sunlight so they can wither and die, and overly-optimistic projections of sweetness and light are doused with appropriate reality. We're not afraid to call things or people as we see them, even if it involves phrases like "bilge," "contemptible" or "mad cow disease."

MWJ Adds Unique Value to Your Week

In short, MWJ provides the news, explanation and analysis that no other journal provides. That's why we've been quoted from the Sydney Morning Herald to TidBITS, and why readers around the world look forward to Saturday each week for the arrival of a fresh dose of persepctive, truth and panache - all with enough facts to support our contentions, no matter how outlandish they seem. (And if we're just speculating, unlike some press reports, we admit it. It's your money; you deserve to know the basis for conclusions, right?)

But don't take our word for it. Read MWJ for yourself and find out what inspires such fierce reader loyalty. Check out our sample issues, or sign up for a three-issue trial subscription - or just subscribe now. If you want to know about the Macintosh, we want to tell you. We'll do everything we can to make you feel that MWJ would be cheap at twice the price.