Apple News Aggregation Site MacSurfer Closes Shop (macsurfer.com) 14
John Gruber spotted this announcement on decades old Apple news aggregation site MacSurfer's website: Dear MHN Readers:
Not seeing a viable future with subscriptions, MacSurfer and TechNN will cease operations effective immediately. Please allow a few weeks to process forthcoming refunds. If need be, subscription inquiries can be addressed to the Publisher at the bottom of the Homepage. Thanks kindly for your support, and thanks for the memories... Further reading: Adios, MacSurfer.
Not seeing a viable future with subscriptions, MacSurfer and TechNN will cease operations effective immediately. Please allow a few weeks to process forthcoming refunds. If need be, subscription inquiries can be addressed to the Publisher at the bottom of the Homepage. Thanks kindly for your support, and thanks for the memories... Further reading: Adios, MacSurfer.
Who now? (Score:3)
I suppose this is sad, but I think it must have been because they only maintained followers from olden times, and didn't really seek out new ones... I've been following Apple stuff for a long time, and have never even heard of MacSurfer.
It just goes to show, no business can rest on the customer base it has.
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I've read the site for years. Decades even. I'm not one to subscribe to sites though -- and I guess there is some regret there. I turned off my ad-blocker on their site though.
The best thing about the site is that it never really changed much even from the early days. They curated and aggregated news articles as just text with links, and provided a daily brief summary of the news. It would be nice to have such a thing for regular news.
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Count me as a decades-long reader, too. This is definitely a sad end.
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I've been following Apple stuff for a long time, and have never even heard of MacSurfer.
That was my thought. I still have a link to macslash that I have been waiting to return.
Blast from the past (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember them from Back In The Day, back when it was hard to get good news about Macs, back when Think Secret was still a thing, back when Mac magazines were still in my local news agency. I think I took them out of my 'check every day' list when everything they had was starting to be reported by all the other sites I frequented. Even now, there's so much crossover between the few that are left, I'm not sure why I still check them all.
I'm sorry to see that they have had to close down after putting all that work in, but it's a tough gig.
"Gruber spotted..."? (Score:1)
Site looks like it's stuck in the 90's (Score:2)
I've heard, peripherally, of MacSurfer, but never really visited that site (if I did, it was usually through a link like in the story here).
Just a quick look at the existing they had right now, it seems like the site is straight out of the 90's, early 2000's - not exactly "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!"-invoking.
Is MacInTouch far behind? (Score:2)
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Sad indeed but... (Score:2)
The suggested subscription pricing was too high for me. I would happily have paid say $10 per year or so. Maybe even $20. But $50 per year was way too much for me. Too high above the sweet spot. I will miss macsurfer.com though, already did. Has been my first website visit of the day for quite a number of years. And there are no alternatives. Only MacinTouch left. Still mourning versiontracker.com as well by the way.
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Thanks ShawnKing! AppleInvestorNews indeed looks like a proper alternative.
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