Future US
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Future US (formerly Imagine Media) is a United States media corporation specializing in targeted magazines and websites in the video games, action sports, music, and technology markets. Future US is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with offices in New York City, New York; Los Angeles and San Diego, California. Future US is owned by parent company, Future Publishing plc, an international publishing company based in the United Kingdom with offices in Italy, France and the US.
Its magazines include:
- Official Xbox Magazine
- PSM: 100% Independent PlayStation 2 Magazine
- PC Gamer
- Maximum PC
- MacLife (Formerly MacAddict)
- Future Snowboarding Magazine
- Snowboard Trade News
- Guitar World
- Guitar One
- Future Music
- Guitar World Acoustic
- Bass Guitar
- Guitar World Legends
- "Revolver"
Future also publishes Cheat Planet, the largest cheat code database on the World Wide Web, as well as Next Generation, a US game-industry news website. In January, 2006, Future launched GamesRadar, a video and computer games site, in the United States and the UK.
[edit] History
Founded in 1985 in the UK by Chris Anderson (not to be confused with the Chris Anderson, Wired's Editor-In-Chief and author of the The Long Tail) Future Publishing was the fastest growing UK publisher of the nineties. From a start in computer and video games magazines, Future successfully diversified into sports, entertainment, computing and general interest magazines eventually becoming the UK's fourth largest publisher.
Anderson left Future in 1993 to start Imagine Media in San Francisco and found equal success in the U.S. In June, 1999, Future and Imagine merged to form the Future Network PLC, a company floated on the London Stock Exchange (symbol FUTR). Future PLC also has subsidiaries in France and Italy as well as many licensees worldwide.
Buoyed by the Internet economy and the success of Business 2.0 in the US (and subsequently in the UK, France, Italy and Germany), Future rode the boom of the late nineties. During this period the company won the exclusive worldwide rights to produce a magazine for Microsoft's Xbox video game console and cemented its position as a leader in the games market.
In the spring of 2001, buffeted by economic factors and the market downturn, Future Network USA went through a strategic reset of its business that included the closure of some titles and Internet operations and the sale of Business 2.0 to AOL/Time Warner.
By early fall 2002, Imagine Media had refocused on its core business, publishing five games and technology magazines: Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer, PSM - 100% Independent PlayStation 2 magazine, Maximum PC and MacAddict. It was then that Imagine became Future Network USA, adopting the name of its parent company, Future plc.
Future used this strong portfolio and its strength in creating media for young men as a platform for growth into the action sports and music markets. In December, 2005, after three years of organic growth and strategic acquisition, Future Network USA became Future US, to reflect its diversification into markets beyond games and technology.
In 2005, Future US made its first venture into the women’s market with the launch of Scrapbook Answers and with the addition of Women’s Health & Fitness, Pregnancy, and Decorating Spaces, to its portfolio of titles with the Future plc acquisition of Highbury House plc.
