March 29, 2019
Volume 40, Number 50
Well, this is it. The final edition of The Neal Spelce Austin Letter. It was precisely 40 years ago today that we began a weekly examination of the Austin area. This is edition number 2,000. Forty years, publishing 50 weeks a year beginning April 1, 1979 (we took a 2–week break each year). And those 2,000 issues totaled around 3 million words written about this remarkable city. For us, it seems to be a good time to move on to other exciting ventures, which we’ll detail further in the newsletter. But for now, if you’ll allow us, it’s time for a bit of reflection.
In 1979, most major private newsletters, such as The Kiplinger Washington Letter, were four–pages of printed information snail–mailed to subscribers. So we followed suit. We converted to Internet distribution in 2000. However, many subscribers preferred a hard copy, and still do, so we designed the Internet version to print each edition in a 4–page format. It remained the same Austin–centric 4–page letter, but with the delivery system arriving at subscriber in–boxes each Friday morning, instead of depending upon postal service delivery that usually didn’t arrive until the following Monday or Tuesday or whenever.
Long-time subscribers will recall the content has changed somewhat since the early days. Back then, there were very few sources of information that focused on Austin business and public affairs. There was no Austin Business Journal and the business pages of the Austin American–Statesman were thin indeed. So we focused on timely – even breaking – news developments. Eventually, the Statesman expanded its business-oriented coverage, and the Internet blossomed, creating a wealth of information for those who wanted to seek it out.
So we carefully moved to providing insight, analysis and perspective about what was happening, predicting trends and offering inside information. It turned out to be spot-on because, after all, we started covering news in Austin as a broadcast journalist in 1956, providing extensive experience and context that added unique depth to our weekly reports.
Ever wonder why our weekly notifications to subscribers listed each topic? It didn’t just say, hey, click here to go to our website for this week’s issue. Period. It was a nod to the change in attention spans and demanding personal schedules. Even if the subscriber didn’t have ten minutes at that moment to read the newsletter, the topics were laid out at a glance. Our newsletter adapted as the Austin area began its amazing transformation. Check out a perspective on this in the next item. Read more →