Things are changing at Apple World Today — and we hope you’ll join us in our new adventure.
Back in February of 2015 when Apple World Today (AWT) first launched, we had a rather simple goal in mind — to create a new website for Apple news, reviews, and tutorials that could quickly take the place of the website where Steve Sande used to work, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). That site was shut down by the management at AOL, Inc, despite being a very popular and well-respected website with millions of readers each month.
The first iteration of Apple World Today was built on the Squarespace platform. That met our goal of being able to have a website up and running in a short amount of time, and it was very scalable to the number of visitors we had each day. By 2021 we found that Squarespace was not capable of handling our needs for advertising, and that was the reason behind moving to our current platform — the WordPress content management system running on a shared server at DreamHost.
We’ve had a few issues in the last few years, mainly in terms of performance. AWT is still a popular site, and with almost 28,000 posts over the 11 years of our existence, we found that unless we spent a lot of money on a very fast server, we were going to constantly need to be in a server upgrade cycle.
Well, AWT is a “for profit” website. With online advertising revenues being stagnant unless we cover the home page with annoying ads — which we do not want to do — our revenues will continue to decline over time.
OUR LONG TERM PLAN
That reality has resulted in a long term plan to convert Apple World Today to a subscriber-based website hosted on the Substack publishing platform. We’re in the process of beginning the transition, which may take several months. What does this mean to you, an AWT reader?
• We’ll continue to provide daily news and other content, free of charge.
• Eventually, we will move totally to Substack and will get rid of all advertising with the exception of sponsored posts.
• Current supporting subscribers on Patreon will be asked to move their subscriptions to Substack.
• Special articles will be behind a paywall — in other words, subscribers will be able to read all of the posts, while non-subscribers won’t.
• All of the 11 years of AWT articles will be available to everyone for free.
How much will a subscription cost? $5 a month or $55 annually. If you feel that AWT is worth more than that to you, we have a “founding member” level at $100 per year.
ONE VERY BIG CHANGE
Perhaps the biggest different you’ll notice between the existing website and the “new” site is how you will be able to read articles. Right now, we operate like every other website — you come to https://appleworld.today and you scroll through the website.
Substack is different, as posts are delivered to you as an email newsletter, posted on the website, and can also be read in the free Substack app. If you love going to the website and reading your news, you’ll be able to continue doing that. Want to get breaking Apple News sent to you? It’ll happen! And with the Substack app you’ll be able to read many other articles from other authors, and receive immediate notifications of articles from your favorite writers.
WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN?
We have a process in place that allows us to move those 28,000 articles from WordPress to Substack without losing anything. However, it will take a while for us to complete the move. The schedule is dependent on a number of factors — it could be completed as soon as the beginning of April or perhaps a bit later.
We will be depending on YOU for the long-term survival of Apple World Today. At the time of the migration, we’ll be making a concerted effort to get our existing subscribers on Patreon to transition over to being Substack subscribers, and we’ll need even more subscribers to be able to get rid of ads once and for all.
If you have any questions or comments about our plans, please let us know —
Dennis Sellers, [email protected]
Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today