Shanghaiist: Hint Magazine calls it a day

hintman

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:50:32 +0800

Haha yeah, well it has been a crazy year, and I don't visit the Shanghaiist. Better late than never! Cheers

Andy Best

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:56:17 +0800

Only just short of a year late ... But thanks for the answer!

hintman

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:40:46 +0800

Hello All, This is Chris Anderson, the former senior editor of Hint. Just saw this thread! Thought I'd throw in my two cents. I left Shanghai in Nov 07 and Joseph Jones took over my position just for reference. He's now the editor of Lifestyle mag in Shanghai. It was a quite sad when I heard Hint would be no more. We really were fighting an uphill battle most of the time, and were aware it was a saturated market. Things were constantly improving though, just not fast enough. If given another year, I feel Hint would have made it at the rate it was going. "Fiction section was interesting too." Thanks for that! Saw the potential for it considering there was nothing like it out there so we gave it a shot (I wrote the first one "Sawyer's Brilliant Plan"). Same thing with the "Who do we think we are" food section where we went "on and on about what we paid" lol. Again, it was in the effort to bring something different that would be appreciated considering many of the food reviewers out there were at these same events but writing about them as if they had gone on their own. Got quite a bit of feedback from readers about that section, nearly all of it positive. Not so much from the other mags. ;) "It actually had a sense of humor and variety." What with our size and all, we did a pretty good job of spicing it up and bringing entertaining and useful info about the city. It was still evolving and getting better as it went. The humor was something incorporated after we had shifted from being geared towards travelers to more of an expat focus. It fit nicely into both Natalie's and my styles, so we went with it. "They either came into the market a bit too late, or, maybe, just maybe, the expat magazine market has already reached saturation point." I'll say it again, if given more time the thing would have been successful. Just didn't have the ah...backing. I'm very proud of what we were able to accomplish with the resources we had. Two editors who did most of the writing (all of it at first), an assistant a small sales team, dysfunctional distribution, and a couple of killer interns (for a couple months). Cheers, Chris

jobarnyjo

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:40:12 +0800

I agree with shopgirl, although a little thin Hint was much better than CW or That's. It actually had a sense of humor and variety. Damn shame.

James Creegan

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:36:02 +0800

I always found Hint's habit of banging on and on about which food they'd paid for and which food they hadn't to be a bit weird. Still, it's a shame it's gone.

shopgirl

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:34:50 +0800

yeah, i also liked Hint, much better than thatshanghai mag, it's so thick and always talk about the same thing while hint was really interesting. WHY WHY WHY

Rebekah Pothaar

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:49:33 +0800

Hmmm, I liked Hint. Sad it's gone. Hopefully with a less saturated market the quality of the remaining expat mags will improve and tighten... if not for fear of failure (and being abused on Shanghaiist).

geobug

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:23:34 +0800

Natalie Hill was the main editor who started up the mag I think, not Chris. I disagree Kenneth, I thought it had better design than the other mags. Fiction section was interesting too. Saturated market though.

Kenneth T

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:57:21 +0800

Yes, I agree. Nury Vittachi was always a great read.

Andy Best

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:35:24 +0800

I think the original editor and driving force behind the mag, Chris, left a month before right? They did do some fiction, which was kind of newish. It was just like a mini version of the other mags, though. I used to like it when CW had the detective fiction by Nury Vittachi.