MacCentral was a web site that provided news and information covering the Apple Macintosh, originally as an independent entity and later as the news service for Mac Publishing Web sites, including Macworld.com and Playlist, before being subsumed by Macworld's own brand.
MacCentral was founded by Canadian businessman Stan Flack and Jim Dalrymple as Associate Editor in 1994.[1] In 1998, MacCentral Online acquired MacGaming. MacCentral Online was purchased by Mac Publishing in 1999.[1] In March 2001, Macworld folded the trade-focused MacWEEK into MacCentral[2] MacCentral was folded into the Macworld brand over a period of several years.
In June 2008 it was announced on the MacMinute news site that MacTech's Community News Scan and Macsimum News will act as caretakers to the archives of MacMinute News and Forums which is where most of Stan's faithful went upon the demise of MacCentral forums. They also announced they would continue to host the MacMinute Forum. Stan's Lounge is crowded with MacCentral and MacMinute faithful in honor of Stan Flack and all that he did for the Macintosh community.
On December 10, 2008 Jim Dalrymple announced that the name MacCentral lives on; with permission from MacWorld, the old MacCentral Forums were opened at www.maccentralforums.com, where eight years of MacCentral forum history could researched.[citation needed] the database of the MacCentral forums has ceased to exist, abbreviated format at archive.gov.[citation needed]
Despite the rebranding of MacCentral, a cadre of loyal readers continued to maintain a presence in the MacCentral Forum, a community that remained in operation without being prominently linked to from anywhere on Macworld's primary site. Those forums were shut down in 2008, with many of the forum members relocating to the MacMinute Café forum. And then, with the shutting down of the MacMinute forums in May 2008 the majority of forum members moved[8] to MacCentral Cafe or other places on the internet.
