T3 magazine

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T3
Editor Michael Brook
Categories Technology, Gadgets
Frequency Monthly
Circulation 60,243
Publisher Nial Ferguson
First issue September 1996
Company Future Publishing
Country Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
Language English
Website T3 Online
ISSN 1364-2640

T3 magazine is a UK-based technology magazine which specialises in gadgets, gizmos, and other technology.

Originally, T3 stood for Tomorrow's Technology Today, but this isn't used anywhere in the magazine or on the website anymore: It's exclusively referred to as T3 or T3.com. The magazine is popular but in terms of sales is ranked second among UK gadget magazines [1], is available in most countries in the world, and has syndicated/localised versions in over 20 countries.

Contents

[edit] History

The first issue of T3 magazine went on sale around September 1996. The magazine was initially meant to be a science and technology magazine, but the publishers changed their mind, and decided to have a look at future technology instead. The reasoning was that there wasn't really an all-round consumer technology magazine in the UK market and the fact that people love reading about technology and gadgets.

The magazine started off as a celebration of the best new technologies that were appearing, to explain how it all works, and how the technologies and products would impact the readers' lives, but evolved into a glossy entertainment magazine as well. Many of the readers started buying the magazine specifically to read about items that were outrageously expensive and outlandish, and the magazine was quickly seen as a 'licence to drool' over bleeding-edge technology. The first issue of the magazine featured the first DVD player to be imported into the UK.

1996 was around the time that everything started to become digital - DECT telephones, digital cameras, PDAs, and later DVD and digital television technology. With most technology going digital and dropping in price, general interest for gadgets rose, as did sales of the magazine.

Ultimately, the magazine started moving away from pure technology coverage, and started writing about anything innovative. As the editor at the time said: "A slightly bigger TV, for example, wouldn't go in the magazine unless it was really sexy or had clever features". Around the same time, the magazine became less geeky in its approach to technology, and became much more of a magazine for design-conscious gadget-loving men. However, the addition of attractive models has drawn some limited suggestion that the publication still relies on a core readership of "sexually repressed nerds".

The first editor of T3 magazine was Steve Jarratt, who also launched Edge. He was followed by Paul Pettengale, Rob Mead, Mark Hyam and James Beechinor-Collins. The current editor, Michael Brook, was head-hunted from T3 magazine's biggest competitor, Stuff magazine.

[edit] Syndication

T3 is a franchise with has local versions in a whole series of countries. The localised versions vary from country to country: Some editions are completely new magazines, created by a local team of journalists and designers under the T3 brand. Other syndications are adaptations of the UK version for a local market: In some countries, for example, the T3 cover girls are unacceptable, so they might be replaced with a more family-friendly or religion-friendly version. In other markets, the covers are re-shot with local models. Most syndicated versions of T3 magazine are a hybrid of both T3 UK content (both editorial and pictorial), and content geared towards local markets, with reviews of companies, services, and items relevant especially to the national market.

Per June 2007, syndicated editions included Australia, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dubai, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Lebanon, Malaysia, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and United Arab Emirates.

Apart from separate magazines, T3's stories often appear in major newspapers, and the T3 staff are frequently featured on Radio and Television as industry experts. Articles are also syndicated in the technology section of the O2 Active portal.

[edit] T3 website

The T3 web site started off as a running advertisement for the magazine, but that has changed quite radically over time. The web site now has a number of staff members separate from T3 magazine, and it operates as a publication in its own right. T3.com now creates a lot of reviews exclusively for the web site, in addition to staying on top of gadget and technology stories as they happen.

Due to its links with the T3 brand and close ties with the industry it covers, the T3 web site frequently breaks news stories before any other outlets. It relaunched in December 2007 as t3.com [2].

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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