November 2004

Letter(s) To Myself

BY GREG GALITZINE

Apparently there is a trend in publishing these days, which has magazine publishers writing letters to themselves, in effect a “letter to/from the editor.” I guess the idea is to trick readers into believing that actual “conversations” are taking place when it’s obvious that the contrived letters exist solely to create a platform from which to bash publications such as mine. It’s a common trick for new magazines as they try to squeeze into an established market. So, trendy guy that I am, I decided to see what the appeal is in writing to myself. Here goes:

Dear Greg,
Your magazine is the best. In fact if your magazine was a person, I’d ask it out on a date.
How do you respond?
Eyelids a-flutter,
-Greg

Well Greg, let me start off by saying thanks. I too think our magazine is the best. In fact, truth be told, I’ve spent a late night or two alone with the publication, and if I wasn’t married, well… you get the idea… This brings up an interesting concept: Trust.

We’ve worked hard at gaining and maintaining a level of trust with our readers. There’s no behind the scenes trickery going on. What you see is what you get. And what you get is the highest quality editorial, written by the highest caliber experts the industry has to offer, and more importantly vetted by an editorial staff that’s dedicated to keeping our readership informed so they can make intelligent buying decisions.

Dear Greg,
Speaking of being married, I noticed that Internet Telephony just underwent a redesign. Was that the result of some seven-year itch?
-Greg

Working on this publication is indeed like a marriage sometimes. And yes, having been married for so long (we consummated our blissful relationship back in 1998, but have been flirting with VoIP even longer dating back to our CTI Magazine origins) we felt it was time to “update the landscaping” as it were. This brings up an interesting concept: Longevity.

We’ve been publishing Internet Telephony since the early days of the industry, when people told us that we were wasting our time. “VoIP is a passing fad,” they’d say. But we knew better. And we were there together with the early players and pioneers as they made their move. We interviewed them, picked their brains, and shared their judgments with our readers. In fact we’ve been running the results of conversations with industry thought leaders forever. A quick glance at our very first issue reveals commentary from VocalTec’s Elon Ganor, Cisco’s Peter Alexander, Lucent’s Kathy Meier… Our second issue features Q&A’s with Bellcore and Qwest, and even “contributed editorial” from industry bigwigs, Tom Evslin (ITXC), Jim Courter (IDT), and Jeff Pulver (pulver.com). Our roots are firmly planted in this industry and that makes us qualified to represent this industry as its flagship magazine.

We’ve been at this a while. We’re good at it. And we find no reason to resort to trickery of any kind. To what end? We value our readers above all else, for without you we understand that our efforts are for naught. I speak with our readers from my office and at our conferences, and it humbles me when they compliment our work. I take these relationships seriously, and I would never do anything to betray that trust. Frankly, I find the whole idea offensive.

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