Shameless plug for my colleagues at IDG in Europe

I've just spent a week meeting with several IDG business units in Europe discussing our online business models, the competitive environment, print versus online media, etc.  I've always known IDG's international presence was powerful with over 400 websites in 80 countries.  But the decentralized model often keeps staff here isolated from the various challenges and individual successes we each face.  I was on a mission to find ways to expand our IT Product Guide internationally, but I'm taking home several new ideas to use for InfoWorld.

Common Themes
Google is a force everywhere, but Yahoo is just a fading blip on the horizon for the Europeans.  Google News is warming up in Europe, but it's not yet a powerhouse.  Blogs are interesting to everyone, but there are few, if any, blog celebrities outside the US. Nobody has mastered the problem of a core content management system that serves both print and online sufficiently.  Everyone is interested in tagging and what tools like del.icio.us can do to help us.  The future is online.

Some thoughts about each business unit:

Sweden
This operation is like what CNet is in the States, though they are much more influential here.  They are a true portal in a Yahoo-like sense.  They've done some really smart things with online wallets that few have tried in the US, and they have ambitious plans in the blogging space. 

Norway
Now with one of the big personalities in the Scandinvian online media leading the online efforts here, expect some interesting innovations in the search space from Norway that could and should be emulated.

Denmark
Again, dominating tech publishing seems easy when you have such a vast pool of content and smart people running the show.  They are seeing huge profits in online and should only get bigger as they roll out new online products.

Computerwoche, Germany
Quality content is the driving force behind this team led by EIC Christoph Witte.  They've not only adapted InfoWorld's IT Product Guide, but they've also translated this database into German for their audience with careful attention to detail, an impressive task by any measure.

tecChannel, Germany

This team is moving aggressively into events and lead gen revenue streams.  Judging by how quick they are to adapt to online models and some very efficient sales performance, this team is one to watch.

UK
The IDG UK team turned a solid domain name in Techworld into a solid business with very impressive revenue growth and traffic to match in only 2 years time.  They adopted the lead gen model from day one, and it's paying off nicely.  It will be interesting to watch how Kit Gould now takes the strong print brands there and emulates the successes of the Techworld model.

Thanks to Kit Gould, Anders Huldt, Soren Queitsch, Henning Sund, Christoph Witte, Dirk Limberg and the rest of the IDG teams for being excellent hosts.  It's a pleasure to work with you all.


Comments:

Re: Shameless plug for my colleagues at IDG in Europe
by Henning Sund on Thu 06 Oct 2005 06:57 AM EDT reddis

Hi Matt,
thanks for the shameless plug - and congratulations with your new position at Yahoo :)

BW
Henning

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