Exciting times ahead for us, and for you
Two magazine issues ago I wrote an article indicating that you were part of the Maximum PC crew. It wasn't a joke. I really do believe that our readership very much guides us in a fashion that's congruent to us guiding you on the next hardware upgrade. And so the emails started coming in.
Long emails, short ones, rants, suggestions, I've read them all. I've been trying to respond to all the emails sent to me, but between the enormous workload at publication and getting back to the feedback, I've admittedly been falling behind in replies—I promise I'll get back to you eventually though, if you have written in.
In the photo above, you'll see the group of us there getting ready to do a podcast. There are many more people involved in Maximum PC that unfortunately can't be in a group photo, but they make the publication awesome and I want to say thanks to them too.
To get right to the heart of the matter though, here's what we've been working on:
Step one: bring on a host of new features. Some of what we have in store include a face-off feature, where our writers and editors duke it out, and a section where we point out what to avoid, and what's utter garbage. I reckon that some companies might not like that section too much, but hey, we're here to look out for you. There's more editorial content coming. We're talking about more reviews, more content that helps you choose the best options for different budgets and different usage scenarios.
While we don't usually give a head's up to readers about what we're working on, I thought everyone would like to know, since I did ask for input afterall. One thing I wanted to mention too is that we're going to start introducing Linux content. I know a lot of you have written in asking for Linux content. Don't worry, I feel ya.
The team is growing now, and we have resources to cover a lot more topics.
Step two: involve the community. We continue to get involved in comments, and later on in the year, we're going to revamp the commenting system as well as the forum. I've also given out my Twitter ID, but in case you didn't get it: @blankspace. I'm also looking to bringing in the PCMasterRace and /r/buildapc community—shoutouts to you guys on Reddit!
Step three: revamp the whole website. Admittedly, maximumpc.com is pretty dated. Yeah, I said it. In fact, I'm being pretty polite. We're working on a new back-end that'll let the team produce content faster, and present it better. And on the front-end, it'll allow you to get to what you're looking for faster too.
Step four: we've been thinking of ways to integrate experiences from readers such as yourself into the fold. I think one of the best ways to vouch for any product is to look at what the crowd is saying. We're thinking of how to integrate this in a way that makes sense for the Maximum PC audience.
These are essentially the four major areas that we're going to execute on this year. However, if you feel that we might be misguided in our efforts, rest assured, we're not forgetting our roots. Some say that we've lost our touch. Some say we've gone too mainstream. I'm here to say we're moving into the future, and we're treading cautiously but with vigor and optimism.
A wise person once told me, sometimes if we don't stop being sentimental about what we've done, we won't be able to do something better. Maximum PC is going to be better than ever.
/ Tuan
Not a single browser was left standing
An unexpected face in the consumer gaming space
