It was the week to subscribe. I was catching up on new publications and the mouse and credit card took a beating. It took a minute and I was sitting back waiting for my first copy of Yahoo! Internet Life to find it's way to my country mail box. I use and recommend Yahoo's search nearly as much as Lycos, so I felt at least warm to their judgment in matters Web. The description and charter subscriber reduced price for the new magazine made it attractive, and I took up the online offer. Maybe I should have read the fine print or checked out the previous incarnation of Internet Life? For Ziff Davis and Yahoo!? Nah.

Two issues down and I'm not anxiously awaiting the third issue. Don't misunderstand me, the magazine is attractive, well laid out, and has some good ideas behind it. It's aimed at the new user market, and it's non-threatening and well written. After a scant few editorial pages looking at wider web issues, you get to the meat of the magazine, the Web reviews. Divided into Fun, Profit and Personal Growth, they'll eventually get around to reviewing a topic you're interested in as they change each issue. Using star ratings, a four star site gets a listing in The Best, anything less then three and a half gets dumped into The Rest which make up most of the listings. There's an editorial policy of getting experts, mostly trade journalists to assemble and rate the hot lists of their specialist areas, which adds some credibility. Somehow it doesn't excite (sorry) and although you'll find a few new sites here as you always do in these listings, the magazine would run to about ten pages if you only listed the best. I could be missing out on something that's on the monthly CD-ROM of course. That picture of the CD-ROM on the cover is as close as you'll get to one if you are a mail subscriber, they're sold on the news stand issue only. (Although you are now offered a 'Best of' CD-ROM if you subscribe).

In the first issue, there's an almost throw-away intro from Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang and from then on, it's all Ziff Davis. With issue #2, Barry Golson took over as editor from Bill Machrone (who spent years as editor of PC Magazine and started Internet Life for ZD) and Golson has made a commitment to maintain the tie-in to the Yahoo Website and to the Yahoo! Internet Life online version. There may be ways that he can do it, and the CD-ROM would make it marginally easier to find sites in a topic area, but other than a paper form of convenient reviews that might save some online time, I'll wait and see.
Until then, I'll stick to the bi-monthly .net directory, still the best catalogue/directory by miles.