ShaneBaxtor.com

On closer inspection, the numbers that were provided to us by our source were outdated and at least one chap took offence to our earlier post and contacted us about it. He wasn’t happy, so we thought we would do some more fact checking and go over the numbers again for you.

While we are unsure if the following numbers are audited or not – they come right from the publishers media kits that they use to help sell ads. We thought we should do an update post and maybe clear things up a little.

What they didn’t know though is that the numbers we quoted were higher than they actually are according to their own media kits and information on their websites. What’s the issue then? I don’t know, but here we go.

PC User Australia 42,177 (ABC July 09 – Dec 09)
APC 32,191 (ABC July 09 – Dec 09)
PC Authority 26,349 (2010 media kit)
PC Power play 19,000 (ROY MORGAN DEC ’07 & YAS ’07)
Atomic 18,000 (2010 media kit)
ARN 10,315 (IDG website)

If you compare these numbers to the numbers in the other post, they are different, but not far off. We are sorry for the number errors. Having said that though, these numbers only go a way to show that TweakTown is now probably able to delivery almost four times as many readers as all of the top Australian magazines combined.

All of these numbers are publically available and we have taken screenshots of websites and documents for safe keeping.

On that note I do apologize for companies wanting to advertise with these magazines for making them look slightly better than they are. It’s nice to know that’s all been cleared up.

So the other day I posted my first SB.com review online; I didn’t announce it on Facebook or anything like that as I would normally do because it was more about me just dipping my toes into the back end to figure out how I want to attack what I want to do.

The first thing you need to know is that I haven’t left TweakTown.com, Cameron and I are as good a mates as we have ever been and to be honest I’m doing more work for the site than ever. For the past few years my focus has been Video Cards and Memory, over the past few months though as TweakTown has grown I’m now doing Displays (Monitors, Projectors and TVs) and recently I’ve received my first GPS samples. The latest subjects are all to do with helping offer another level of information to our readers, and I use the word our readers because while I have no financial stake in the site, working at TweakTown for 7 years means that the people that read and appreciate my reviews are like my extended family.

Like most young 25 year olds though I have goals and ambitions, I’ve seen a hole in Australia when it comes to getting information out there and I intend to help plug it.

When I started my blog I had no intension on doing reviews, let me give you the tip, in 5 months and 14 days I’ve done 80 yes eight zero reviews for TweakTown. I’m one of very few global full time writers for a tech website and one of even fewer when it comes to Australia. Since I went full time for TweakTown in 2008 I’ve done 339 reviews. It’s not hard to do the maths, I’m a reviewing machine lol.

In 7 years though I’ve talked to everyone from Marketing Executives, Wholesale and Retail Store Owners to End Users. I’ve learnt a lot about the Australian market and figure that I’ve got a good enough understanding off it to really offer something better then what the current magazines in Australia do.

I’m at a level in my work life that my productivity is through the roof, multiple test beds, stream lined procedures and templates that have taken me years to perfect mean that I can just power through reviews these days. Its these reasons why I can offer the companies I deal with such fast turnaround times on TweakTown reviews.

Over the past few years I’ve been writing for some local magazines, here I’ve been doing Video Card reviews and RAM along with a few other things. What I was able to offer companies was better exposure for their samples, I was able to offer them the review on TweakTown they would always get and then some Video Cards and memory would also get reviewed in some of Australia’s biggest magazines.

So the question is what do I want to review? Well anything and everything. I’d review a fridge if you want to send it to me, my drinks do need to be cold you know. In all seriousness though the aim is to focus on the normal computer goodies for now. By covering things like motherboards, hard drives and CPUs items that are covered by other writers at TweakTown I’m able to expand my knowledge on the areas that interest me with firsthand experience. I really pride myself on my knowledge of Video Cards and Memory because of firsthand experience.

So there’s a few things that people who want to send samples too me need to know, if you send me Video Cards and Memory a review will always go on TweakTown before anything else, much the same way a product was dealt with when I was writing for the magazines, instead of being limited to only 2 video card reviews a month though there is no limit for SB.com; one of the biggest factors I’m pushing when compared to Australian magazines.

So other things, motherboards, SSD and more. If you send me a motherboard you’re sending Shane of sb.com a motherboard not Shane of TweakTown.com. Chris at TweakTown offers 12 page reviews covering loads off information about hard drives, Sean offers the same sized reviews for TweakTown on motherboards. I want to offer reviews here at about 4x the size of a magazine which equates to around 1000 – 1200 words. They’ll be a single page and are aimed to offer significantly more information than a 300 word magazine review; at the same time in a much quicker lead time.

The information in my reviews will be more generalised, in much the same way I can be at my local game store and check IGN on my iPhone to see if a game looks good you’ll be able to quickly fire up SB.com, fire through a review on a product and hopefully be able to make a decision.

This brings me to my advertising plan; my main focus is about offering Wholesalers and Retailers in Australia a chance for someone to go straight from the review to a retailers website and buy the product. Its designed so if someone wants to buy from their local computer store and they don’t sell the product they can say it can be bought at X Wholesaler. What I hope is that retailers will be able to expand their line up with new products and Wholesalers will hopefully be able to pick up some new customers.

” Where to Buy (Wholesalers): Do you sell the HD 5970 TOXIC in Australia? Email us for Ad opportunities.
Where to Buy (Retailers): Do you sell the HD 5970 TOXIC in Australia? Email us for Ad opportunities”

Then the retailers who advertise will be able to hopefully pick up some new customers. The aim is to cap retailers to around 10, the idea is that if I reviewed a Gigabyte Motherboard which is something most computer stores in Australia offer , when it comes to showing where the product can be bought I’m not showing 100 retailers making the whole process very counterproductive, instead I’m aiming for 1 WA, 1 SA, 3 VIC, 3 NSW, 1 or 2 QLD and 1 TAS. Wholesalers are a different story though since few wholesalers cross sell the same brands there’s no cap, worst case a Gigabyte product is reviewed only two or three wholesalers are listed.

I hope that helps cover some of the plans and helps clear some confusion. Not only am I not leaving TweakTown, I’m not aiming to compete with it (it does 3x the traffic of all Australian Tech Magazines combined, it would be near impossible for anyone to start a website today and compete with those numbers) I’m not planning to compete with any tech site really, instead my aim is to offer something between a magazine and a typical tech website. It might not be anything new on a global scale but it should be something new for the Australian market and something the Australian market is missing because while it’s a small market it’s an important one.

Edit: With a bit of research and time I’ve manage to get the advertised circulation numbers from all the below magazines from Media kits after someone wasn’t too happy with the original numbers we posted. Unfortunately the numbers are worse than the ones below; oh well you can read it here. No other information in the below post has been adjusted.

I consider myself lucky that I write for TweakTown; there’s very few websites that people would’ve been able to write for over 7 years, go through a finical crisis and still be working full time for that said site.

I have been speaking to Cameron about the circulation numbers of the Australian magazines and thought it would be worth asking him about TTs unique visitors. I already know that hits are in the millions but I wasn’t going to get into a flame war with people saying that a magazine’s circulation number is a unique reader verse a hit on a website.

Cameron confirmed what I thought…and in a much bigger way then I expected. In a month Australia is seeing 156,000 sales without Atomic. Now let’s be serious with Atomic it’s probably around 185,000. Let’s just say in a magical world where pigs flies and I ride a unicorn down to the shops Atomic is doing 100,000.

Google Analytics puts TweakTowns UNIQUE, yes UNIQUE not hits but unique visitors at over three times that 256k figure. Now I can understand certain companies who want to target Australia only when it comes to advertising and you feel that as big as TT is the fact they’re global doesn’t benefit you a whole lot. TT does and have done for a long time offered Geo Targeted ads though which isn’t just great for Australia but other countries who want to target a certain country.

Geo Targeting is useful to a certain level off customer, when it comes to manufacturers global advertising is the best option but if you’re a retail store based in Australia, America, Europe or any other country then you can still advertise via Geo Targeting.

While it might seem a bit counterproductive promoting advertising on a site other then my own the bottom line is that TweakTown offers a global audience to people. A review on TweakTown is seen by millions of peoples in almost every country. My goal here is to offer news on a global scale and reviews that can be seen on a global scale but is targeted for the smaller but equally important Australian Audience.

Honestly though if you’re a manufacturer advertising in Australian magazines, add what it would cost to advertise in every one. Then go to TweakTown.com and contact Cameron Wilmot; I can almost guarantee you that it will be cheaper to advertise on TweakTown while seeing 3x the audience and opening your product to the world.

Again though; three times the combined figures of Australian Magazines. I’m asking for a pay rise!

Edit: With a bit of research and time I’ve manage to get the advertised circulation numbers from all the below magazines from Media kits after someone wasn’t too happy with the original numbers we posted. Unfortunately the numbers are worse than the ones below; oh well you can read it here. No other information in the below post has been adjusted.

Today I saw the latest audited circulation numbers for Australia’s top tech magazines. For the most part there’s no real surprises, PC User for a long time has sat in no.1 spot followed by APC, after that we see a couple of other magazines battle it out.

What made me laugh though was Atomic, oh and how it made me laugh. Clearly not wanting to be audited they did the honest thing and just gave there Circulation numbers out.

PC User Australia 55,000 circulation
APC 36,000
PC Authority 30,000
PC Power play 25,000
ARN 10,000
Atomic (unaudited) 100,000

If Atomic was Pinocchio I wouldn’t want to be looking at their nose right now. It’s been common knowledge for a long time that PC User and APC have held top two spots; the fact that Atomic have come in and said there Circulation is 2x better then the no.1 magazine and 3x better then the no.2 one is just unbelievable. The least they could have done is made it look half believable by saying they had like 38,000.

Magazine advertising is the only thing keeping these magazines alive, here you’ve got audited circulation numbers. If you want to advertise make sure you go off these numbers and not unaudited ones that a sales guy is pitching at you.

Long gone are the days where you should be paying $1,000s for a full page colour ad, most of these guys are desperate for your ad so squeeze them for everything there worth and don’t lock yourself into hugely long contracts.

I understands it’s going to take time for the Australian wholesale and retail channel to acknowledge that the magazine is no longer the way to deliver tech information, for now though I can at least give you an idea of what’s going on.

I can’t speak for the rest of the world but in Australia we’re seeing IT Magazines slowly die off; over the recent years we’ve seen some of the most popular mags come down to just a few full time staff compared to an office full. For the last few years I worked for APC which is one of Australia’s Largest Tech Magazines. Looking through the magazine you can see why it’s one of the most popular; even as someone who spends a huge amount of time on the internet I love reading APC because it keeps me up to date on things that I like but forget about; for example peripherals like Printers. I’m not about to spend a day on a printer review site but I can open up the APC and see some of the latest printers, based on their words I can then at least give someone a bit of a recommendation.

The other day though I received a list from an advertising company that ranked the Australian magazines (Based on circulation); to be honest the rankings didn’t surprise me. What did surprise though was a few years ago you would’ve had circulation numbers, instead these days you just have a rank. The reason for this is that circulation numbers have dropped, subscription numbers have dropped and honestly TweakTown delivers more content to more users in a span of days then every Tech Magazine in Australia does in a month at no cost to you, the same goes for other major tech sites.

Magazines find themself in a hard position, they’re in a position where they have a website but can’t push content on to it before the release or soon after the release of the issue as people wouldn’t buy it. Recently one company linked me to a review of a reference mid range video card review on a tech magazines website; it was a direct copy of the magazine review, just months afterwards. The problem was on the site it gave the impression it just came out although it was four months old and new models had been released around it.

Australian magazines will have to implement a system like the New York Times in where you’ll be able to subscribe to the magazines via your iPad and receive content that way. This is a very expensive process though and it’s safe to say that only a few magazines will be able to offer this. The question is will they offer it before it’s too late?

Resellers and Wholesalers need to understand that in Australia the magazine is a dieing breed for them; one manufacturer told me the other day they just advertise in these magazines because it’s not worth arguing with the wholesalers who sell their product that there’s no real value in it anymore.

TweakTown is launching a new review style soon for certain categories; I just finished the first review today that will fall under this new category. The idea is that TT will be offering Magazine style reviews on certain products. What that means is a single page with a word count up to about 1,000. In the Magazine world that would equate to 1 1/2 to 2 pages which is a number reserved for only big launches. Every word that is written in a review at TweakTown or a post here isn’t constrained to word counts for the simple reason that it doesn’t cost us to print a single page; yes it costs money to produce with wages and hosting but if TweakTown had to print what was done on the site in a monthly magazine it would be 100s of pages in length and $100s of dollars for you to buy.

What we’ll be able to do is offer companies more reviews, more in depth reviews and readers just more content in general. That’s good for you! It doesn’t matter what site you visit the idea is to make sure you’re happy.

At the moment I’m experimenting in the back end of sb.com to setup a magazine style review system; the idea isn’t to take on TweakTown or any other tech site. It’s to take on the magazines in Australia. I don’t want to be compared to other tech sites; my whole aim is to be compared to magazines specifically in Australia. The pricing will be Australian and the places you can purchase from will be in Australia.

What’s so fantastic though is that the words around a few names of wholesalers, resellers and prices are still relevant to everyone in the world. In much the way Australians read tech sites based in the US; US people can read a review based on a site from Australia.

This post is essentially a shout out to Manufactures, Wholesalers and Retailers. These companies are so blinded by the “Magazine” label that ShaneBaxtor.com isn’t a website, it’s a paperless Magazine. What we’ll be able to offer is something that paper magazines at the moment in Australia can’t!

1) Content delivered to you when an NDA is lifted.
2) More room then you’ve ever had in a paper magazine so people can really know your product.
3) The ability to link to wholesalers and retailers of items.
4) More reviews then you’ve ever had; I can fit more than one of your products in my paperless magazine each month.
5) The fastest turnaround times you’ve seen; we don’t need to send our reviews off to any printer, wait for them to be packaged up and shipped out to local news stores.

While at the same time saving the environment by not using paper.

Currently we’re completely iPhone compatible; if you go to this site on any iPhone, iPod Touch, Google Android Smartphone, Palm Pre and many other smart phones you’ll see the site in a easy to read format. Love or hate the iPad it’s setting the benchmark for the future of content delivery thanks to its large screen. Slate devices are going to be a big thing in the coming years and making sure we’re 100% compatible with those devices is going to be a priority. You should be able to read a review or news; anywhere, anytime on any device.

I’ll be making sure that I attack every layer in my own layered marketing plan. Manufacturers, Wholesalers, Retailers and End Users. I know what all four layers want and I intend to offer it.

The future of Australian Tech is here; and if you’re obsessed with the word “Magazine” then you’re visiting not a website but a Paperless “Magazine”; and why wouldn’t you want to do that, unless you hate the environment! Do you hate the environment?

We live in a world where it’s about the people you know and not what you know; over the years I’ve always understood how important it is to have the right contacts but honestly until I started my blog I never really felt the true importance to knowing the right people.

Since the launch of my blog; which was unofficially the 20th of January the site has had 1937 Unique visitors for 7347 page views. Now while that feels like a small amount when compared to TweakTown which has probably done that amount of traffic in the time you’ve read this it’s a good number when comparing to other sites.

I was recently speaking to someone who’s been running there own site for a while now; they currently do 3000 page views a month. In less than a month since launch I’ve done over double that. Now I don’t want to give the impression that I’m trying to big note myself but these are numbers you need to know.

The day I launched my blog I had exclusive news about the Galaxy GTS 250 Dual GPU card. The first official day, I had news that most websites didn’t have and I had that because of the people I know. In less than 14 days I had secured a prize for my Australian readers and one for everyone else in the world. Again because of the people I know.

It’s so hard to start a website these days; especially a tech one for the simple fact they’re so many established ones. For starters you can’t just email Gigabyte and ask for a HD 5970, you don’t even know who to contact, and if you follow the links on the website you don’t get to anyone that’s really able to help you.

The thing is though the people I know give me the content to make my site what it is; what it all comes down to though are the people I don’t know. The people I don’t know are the ones visiting the site. Without the people I know though the people I don’t know wouldn’t have a reason to come.

In the first month I’ve done more traffic then I had hoped, upgraded to a dedicated server, got my first featured blogger, locked in two competitions and managed to keep up with almost a post a day on content that’s unique while pushing out 19 reviews for TweakTown this year.

On that note I just want to give a quick thanks to everyone, be it someone I’ve worked with for years or a first time visitor. if you want to keep up with blog posts you can check out my twitter account here or my Facebook page here. If you’re an Aussie you should jump on our competition here and if you’re from anywhere else check out our global competition here.

Competition has Ended; Winner has been emailed. Thanks again PC Maniacs and iBuyPower Australia.

We’re glad to announce our first competition which is coming to our Australian Readers thanks to PCManiacs.com.au and iBuyPower.com.au. Every month we’ll be hosting a competition for just our Australian Readers with the help of PCManiacs and iBuyPower Australia.

Don’t worry we’re not going to make you go through hoops, know how to use the most advanced software package in the world or anything like that. All the info you need to know is below.

What we’re giving away: Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard

Who can enter: Anyone with an Australian address; PO Box is fine for this Prize

How can you win: Leave a comment saying “Thanks PCManiacs.com.au, iBuyPower.com.au and ShaneBaxtor.com for giving me the chance to win a Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard. -(State you’re in)”

When’s it end: 28th February 2010

How will I know if I win: You’ll be contacted via the email address you use in your comment which can be seen in our back end. You’ll have 48 hours to respond to that email with a valid address, if you don’t respond another random person will be chosen.

If I win what can I do: Once you get the prize we would love if you could take a photo of the product attached to your system and email it to us at shane@shanebaxtor.com so we can post a quick congratulations post in which we mention your name in a way you like, be it nickname or first name.

Can I enter more than once: Yes, you can enter once every 48 hours to increase your chances of winning.

So all I have to do is copy and paste – Thanks PCManiacs.com.au, iBuyPower.com.au and ShaneBaxtor.com for giving me the chance to win a Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard. -(State you’re in) – and insert the State I’m in? Yes, it’s really that easy. I’ve left an example below.

Now if you’re not in Australia don’t worry, we’ll have another competition hopefully started up in the next few days which will be open to everyone.

I’ve said that there’s so much that I want to do with my blog, I don’t want it to be another blog which regurgitates information that’s already on the net or gives the opinion of someone who doesn’t really matter. I want to bring you information that’s fresh and perspective of people who are in the industry.

For that reasons I’m glad to announce ShaneBaxtor.com first Featured Blogger. The idea behind a Featured Blogger is that they’ll be able to bring something to the table that I can’t, and the reason they’re here is because they’re unable to manage a blog which needs daily updates due to their own business or work commitments, instead with some spare time here and there they can give us a fresh perspective once or twice a month or every week.

The first Featured Blogger is a good friend of mine; Rex, Owner of iBuyPower Australia and PC Maniacs who has worked with me a number of times on TweakTown.com in some of our most exciting articles like HD 4870 CrossFire X @ 4GHz when I was living in Melbourne, Australia will be able to offer something I can’t.

Being the Owner and Operator of two of Australia’s premier e-tailors and a computer enthusiast himself, Rex is going to bring a perspective of what it’s like owning and operating these two websites. He’ll cover everything from why he’s selling one brand over another, insight of what it’s like running these businesses and his thoughts on the latest products he’s using himself.

We hope to have what will be known as the Power Report become a weekly feature but our plan for featured bloggers is that they’ll do what they can when they can.

Aside from this we’ll be starting competitions from next week, the plan is to have two one will be a global competition open to everyone which will more than like have a different sponsor every time we run one. The second is one open to Australian Residents Only and sponsored by PC Maniacs, the first prize that’s going to be given away is a Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard. Details on how to enter will be posted soon.

For now though I want to welcome Rex to what will become a premier board of Featured Bloggers and look forward to seeing his first Power Report.

Just a quick update on the site, and *Knock Knock* Delivery, we’re now on a dedicated server and since the transfer of the site happened when I would do *Knock Knock* Delivery it hasn’t happened yet. I will work on it though over the next 24 hours so keep an eye out. I also hope that the new server feels speedy