MacTribe, a new magazine for Mac owners and enthusiasts, will launch in the US and Canada on October 15.
The magazine, published eight times a year with an initial circulation of 45,000, grew out of a three-year-old Web site of the same name. Content will cover product reviews, interviews, news and lifestyles in an effort to attract a range of Mac users, from college students to creative professionals. MacTribe magazine will be distributed in controlled circulation to creative professionals, by paid subscription and on newsstands at major retailers such as Barnes and Noble.
“I’ve been seeing a real need for something besides the top two Mac magazines [MacLife and Macworld], which are both on the product side and have been around for a while,” explained Daniel Robillard, publisher and editor-in-chief of MacTribe. “What they’re delivering is good in that niche, but Mac users are a much larger consumer market now, and that makes it a very different Apple era.
“Mac users needed something more wide-ranging, with interviews and coverage of creative areas like design and photo,” he said. “I had to go to a lot of different magazines for that information before, and that’s why MacTribe came out as a print publication.”
The magazine is marketing subscriptions to readers of its Web site and its 30,000-circulation weekly newsletter. MacTribe also is working with a number of trade shows — including PhotoPlus and MacWorld — and Apple user groups to build brand recognition. Robillard said that the hope is for user groups introduced to the magazine with free copies to adopt paid subscriptions by 2009.
“The goal would be for the magazine and the Web site to work with each other to build a larger audience, where people can come to one place to get all the Mac information that they need,” said Robillard.
In January, MacTribe will launch a video podcast to complement its site and magazine.
