API magazine is closing

How does YIP compare? They awarded the poor mining investor kids property investors of the year. And a series of service provider awards to those who appear to advertise a lot in their mag. That's how it compares....

 

That is because it is not worth 200/month, probably not even 200 a year.

The only thing it provides is an easy way to see how the listing has changed & that is probably out there and free too, or you can manually monitor (which is not of course always practical).

The problem with these sites, APM, RPDATA, Ripehouse is they should allow a small fee to access data for private individuals, then build other services around that they can sell.

The days are numbered for them too possibly if they insist on this model, only REAs, Solicitors etc will pay commercial type rates.

The valuation is so clunky too.

 

I hate to say it but... KSOU manages to aggregate data from many sources (probably illegally; Im sure some of their data is API-ing to paywall-protected sites/resources...), and even though the interface is as cheap and nasty as any knock-off product, the raw data is quite good. You have to draw your own outcomes from the data though, to identify trends.

KSOU is designed for the Chinese. So, for things Chinese care about... School catchment zones + rankings, % of community in suburb born in China/speaking Chinese etc... Well you can bet your lucky red golden 88 waving cat that all that rich data is in KSOU too

DSRData is quite good too.

 

Sad to see you guys go. Good luck to all the staff! I'd been subscribed for a while - always a great way to wind down.

 

Still hard to believe this.
A huge loss to property journalism.

 

Not trying to be judgemental but didn't they also have an editor for a very short time who was not an investor? I know everyone has to start somewhere but it's meant to be a property investment magazine. I also subscribe to this magazine too and they do have some stuff that is good.

 

I think magazines often die when advertisers stop putting money into them - perhaps because there are other avenues (digital etc) where their budgets are being used up. Readership figures were actually up for API under @Daisycutter4's editorship.

I don't know the API cost breakdown, but having worked on a similar-ish mag - our cover charge on the mag (and especially the discounted subscription costs) never covered the cost of even printing the title. Let alone the cost of graphic designers/journos/columnists/data etc.

A lot of mass-media publications online are seeing audience growth but still struggling to attract the $$s from advertisers.

It's a pretty complex industry.

 

I received this months magazine, and was expecting a "we are closing " type article

are you guys going to do a final edition?

or is it industry trend to not announce and close suddenly??

 

I think it was announced after the final edition and they were preparing the next one but the company has closed up. If it was they are 2 days from printing they might of ran a 'thank you edition'.

I find it weird it still isn't on the website and the twitter feed hasn't been active which usually it was quite active. People are still probably subscribing so it would be interesting to see what happens with these people who try to subscribe for Christmas and find out the company announced closing up weeks ago.

 

I did check back when it was announced and it seemed the subscription webpage was closed.

 

Interestingly, there's been no announcement on the website as far as I can see. People are still buying subscriptions and advertisers have paid 6-12 months worth of space in advance is my understanding. A real shame.

 

Noted - I was told on the day we shut a notification would go up on the website by afternoon. After I made the post to here and Linkedin a decision was made by the owner to keep the website running so subscribers could continue to access premium content and online data for as long as possible, but they didn't put up a notice on the site about the closing. They did stop the ability to subscribe straight after we were told. Hopefully more will come to light over the coming weeks via the website or other communication.

 

I should chase them up on my password, it never worked.

Did they say how long it would be up ? I assume nothing new will go there ?

 

You won't get anyone at the office now – no admin in place. There is nothing new going up on the site as yet – they're in the process of winding things up but I'm told it takes time.

 

any idea on what you may do moving forward? Hope it all works out for you, one door closes another opens as they say

 

Would love to stay in property media but high profile opportunities to provide unbiased commentary via full
length feature articles are actually fairly rare. I may have to freelance for a stretch ... but failing all else I've kept my valuation ticket so that's not a bad fallback. Whatever happens it won't be until January. Might as well take the break that's been thrust upon me Merry Christmas to you and yours

 

The administrator was appointed this afternoon and I note the site has now been shut down.

 

DC4, Maybe you have a chat with @Simon Hampel and startup your own online version in a joint venture with some who are fluent in the advertising area...

 

Odd, it was showing as a suspended account yesterday but now it's back online with a lot of the content still there (few error pages). Got a bounceback when I emailed about my sub.

Now to go about trying to save the digital editions before they're gone forever.

Hope they keep access to the databank for those that subscribe, would be good to have that kind of info easily accessible

 

The administrator should have an interest in keeping the site up I would imagine, assuming they may try and sell.

It would be good to be able to get the past editions that @House is talking of before they are no longer, I know it may be hard to do that, and not a priority for anyone though