CompuServe Messages

Steve, I don't think it's as much editorial policy to slight shareware, as much as lack of knowledge of appropriate sharware solutions on the part of the writers and editors involved. Commercial software producers send press releases and review copies of their products to the magazines. Editors are swamped with more info than they can fit from the commercial quarter. Yet since I've been at COMPUTE I've only received *one* unsolicited shareware product for review. (I've received numerous PC shareware products, though–those guys are vicious marketers.) If shareware authors would expend equal effort as the commercial producers, I'm sure they'd have a much better chance of coverage. I spend a huge chunk of my personal time researching the online services for user opinions, tips, and significant shareware products. If it wasn't my primary hobby, there's no way I could check out the small percentage of what's out there that I manage to. But because I've done this, some significant products such as SID 2, AFax, and PC-Task will be getting real coverage in COMPUTE soon. Anyway, the bottom line may have something to do with it at some publications–I can't say for sure. But I do know that if a shareware author would write a basic press release, and send a _fully functional_ evaluation copy to each of the three Amiga publications in the U.S., that person would have a MUCH bigger chance of seeing his/her product written about than if they just post it to a BBS and let fate take its course.