Forrester Magazine R.I.P.?

Updated

Just a year after Forrester Research launched its magazine to cover the tech space, it is shutting down, according to word we’ve received from editor Jimmy Guterman. Perhaps full editorial freedom meant too many uncomfortable moments with clients? We’ll try to find out what happened…

UPDATE: We just talked live with Jimmy. He said the decision to close the magazine was entirely a financial one. The “client response had zero to do with the closing of the magazine,” he said. “The Ford situation early on was an anomaly, never repeated. I got tremendous support both from Forrester execs and clients to publish a truly independent magazine.”

In the end, he said, Forrester decided it is not a magazine company.

Noteworthy were Jimmy’s musings about what a magazine should be these days. For him, it means fostering a…

community:

“The definition of what is going to be a magazine is going to change radically over the next few years. Slate is a magazine. Salon in many ways meets the critiera of what is a magazine.”

He said Fast Company magazine, as built by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, was also a model. Besides brilliant timing, they fostered a community around the magazine. “They had all these events around town,” he said. “It was more than this big thing that you got in the mail each month. The trick for publishers is going to be how to do that. For any maagizine to thrive at this point, it needs that.”

The New Yorker is a great magazine, but that it too puts a lot of work and money into the New Yorker Festival every year, he added.

“We didn’t have time to develop that,” he said of his work at Forrester.

As for Jimmy’s plans, he’s still pondering his options.