I want to know what you other readers think of this idea: What if we could buy a CD-ROM with ALL of Testosterone’s Articles from every past issue? The articles would all be in a reprintable format that you could copy and paste text from (if you wanted to quote the article in a different app, for example). It could probably even have all the different Testosterone wallpapers on it.
If a CD-ROM were to be released with, say, the first 100 issues on it, who would buy it, and how much would you pay for it? What about if it had the first 150 or 200 issues on it? Be honest about whether you would buy it and for how much, that way I can campaign the staff to release/support something like this.
It would be a lot of work and probably quite spendy to develop something streamlined and easy to use, so they obviously wouldn’t want to back this project unless they knew ahead of time how many they would sell.
Also, any ideas for the format or what you would want to see on it (dream away)? I'm thinking PDF files, so that almost anyone could read them on their computer, PC, Mac, Etc. You can even get PDF files onto a Palm Pilot if you want to.
My vision would be for a 200th issue CD-ROM that would have the first 200 issues on it. Ideally they would all be searchable. Also would be nice to have the T-Mag wallpapers and the audio/video clips on it. Maybe, if we could talk them into it, a short preview of the Ian King leg workout video or some kind of “exclusive” video interview with Tim & TC about their original idea for T-mag and how far it has come, where they’d like to be in another 200 issues.
You guys and gals excited yet? Let’s hear those votes and ideas!
What if you want to read T-Mag issues from your laptop on an airplane or in a hotel room? What about just having the CD as an archive so that if Testosterone ever (not that they will… knock on wood) stops being published for some inconceivable reason, you still have the info to reference. What about people with slow, or flaky modem connections, for whom viewing webpages is a chore? What about being able to take the CD with you to your place of work if they don’t let you have web access or had Testosterone blocked because of “questionable” content?
Just a few of the scenarios that I can think of. I’d pay $30 for the conveinience of having it on CD, instant access to the articles and having “T to go” on my laptop or to take with me to someone’s house with no (or too slow) internet connection. I know, for me, it would be much easier to get my wife, who is a Bill Phillips’ Body for Life disciple, to read more Testosterone training articles if they were on a CD instead of the internet. Maybe there’s a psychological reason for that. I dunno, perhaps Chris S. might? :o)
i would definetly buy it. having it on cd rom means all the pictures and information loads much faster, plus it does come in handy for times that you don’t have access to the internet. Great idea man! I would say no more than25 bucks though. Talk to TC and Chris to see if they are cool with it first.
Interesting idea, but as has been pointed out above, all the stuff is available on the site for free. However, if the CD-ROM cost less than what the modem charge would be to access, say, half the site (I doubt anyone would really read ALL of it), then maybe you might have an economic argument for buying it.
If you could add a better search utility or a comprehensive index, that’d make it worth something…my only complaint with T-Mag is that the search function isn’t all it could be - you can’t sort the results and sometimes you know perfectly well an article’s out there somewhere yet the search doesn’t bring it back. Also, you could add some new content - QuickTime videos of exercise execution, discussion amongst the Gang O’ Five (or the Gang O’Babes perhaps!), etc.
How much would I pay? Depends on how much new content was there and how good the index was.
Sounds like a good idea. But I would put it in DVD format just so you can have room for added stuff. If you’re gonna do something like that, you have to make it special. The back issues are already available on the web, so you gotta put some extra stuff to get people to buy it. Along with the back issues, I would love to see videos of perhaps Ian King’s “Bring the Pain Series” for upper and lower body. Also John Berardi’s “Don’t Diet Diet” article as well as an interactive log to go with it would be cool. A biography of T-Mag would be awesome. Maybe some behind the scenes footage you read in Tim Patterson’s articles but never get to see. I think it would be a great idea to have the back issues on a cd rom but it’s got to have more than just the articles.
The problem with using DVD as a media for something like this is that it would A) Drive the cost up considerably, and most of us are cheap sons of bitches… wouldn’t surprise me if DVD format doubled the production price, since the quantity would be pretty small (not gonna sell 500,000 or more copies, obviously). And, B) You would lose the widespread compatibility of CD-ROM. A normal CD-ROM using a standard file format like PDF (aka Adobe Acrobat) would allow almost any PC or Mac built in the past 8 years to use the disc. DVD would rule out a lot of potential purchasers (unfortunately)… even though techno-geeks like myself would go for it, some people wouldn’t/couldn’t.
Having custom software written for the disc might also be cost-prohibitive, since that would cost alot to have written (unless someone did it for free)... so that might rule out things like interactive logs. However, something like a collection of spreadsheets or printable eating/workout logs would be easy and almost free to add to the disc.
My primary idea was to have an archive of the articles with a better search capability, the stuff posted on the website, and MAYBE a few minutes of “bonus” footage-type video. But that all depends on what people would pay. If we all get everything we could wish for, it might cost $100 per copy, whereas JUST the articles on CD in PDF format and with a search funtion could maybe be compiled and sold for as little at $10-$20. But the input is good.
I like the idea of having alot of video/audio on it, but I wonder how much that would drive up the production costs… if there was any original footage that had to be produced for the CD, that would make a big difference in price.
the cd would have to contain some small movie clips. Say along with every other each article a windows media clip could be included. This would be a good way to show proper form on a certain excercise( say for legs). The cd would have to be interactive also. It would be cool if they could include a litte T-man game. Im sure the programmers there could whip up something cheesy for us.
That would kick ass I would be all over that like stank on shit. PDF would rock however any accepted format would be good just not html as it is to much crap when printing. I would want a swearchable, printable protable document.
One, I would buy it as long as it hard a very intelligent search engine. Two, Sasa, I use MS IE, how did you download the whole site, I’d like to do that as well.
I was once on gym america website when it was still in beta testing. It’s a shitty site in my opinion now but something that it had was very cool. They had animated flash windows of various lifts. For example it was a mannequin [sp] looking body and it was doing a loop of a technique, from two angles. On the bench press the “camera” was above the person and then their was a size view. To the right of the animation there was another body outline and it colored the muscles that this exercise was hitting. If they could incorporate that on a CD or even on the site I would be very happy.
There are specialized programs used to download whole sites. You might want to look for Teleport Pro, Anawave Websnake or Web Extractor. Basically, you should be able to find them on tucows, winfiles or any other software related site, just pick one that is freeware or suits best your financial situation or crack “obtainability” Caution: for some strange reason, not every piece of software is able to download every site, sometimes you have to use various softwares to download them…
Less than 400 MB uncompressed.