Category: strategy

InfoWorld to close magazine business

Rex Hammock and Valleywag tip us off to Sam Whitmore’s MediaSurvey piece on the closure of InfoWorld’s magazine operation.


Though still rumor at this point, the news doesn’t surprise me one bit. The “enterprise fleet”, as former IDG President Pat Kenealy once descibed the combo of InfoWorld, Networkworld, Computerworld, and the CXO titles, was a crowded space within the company not to mention amongst the amazingly dense collection of print titles across the market at places like CMP, Ziff, etc.

When I was at InfoWorld, there were countless discussions about how to work together and compete with Computerworld, a “sister” publication that operates in Boston. We found a nice complementary relationship online where InfoWorld focused on products and Computerworld focused on news. That position may still work for them, but they’ll have to find a way to pay for the research involved in reviewing enterprise-scale hardware and software. It ain’t cheap or easy.

If they can’t pay for it with the niche-level advertising, then everyone in the market is worse off. Somebody somewhere needs to pay InfoWorld fair market value for the analysis they have provided in the past.

Fair market value will not likely be as attractive as it used to be. It may not pay for lavish sales offsites and fat expense budgets. But the market for it is real nonetheless.

If the rumor is true, then IDG is doing a smart thing even if merely experimenting with the model for how to move entirely online for the rest of the “fleet”. Somebody had to step forward, and InfoWorld is as well positioned to make that transition as anybody.

They’ve figured out some clever ways to package and sell podcasting, screencasts, RSS, newsletters and lead generation programs even if only as a loss leader for larger bundles of ad impressions.

They need to continue the progression and start baking their valuable data and services into strategic distribution points (how about IDG’s 300 other web sites around the world to start…?) and find ways to integrate their offline events business into the online experience as a form of collaboration, social networking and participation.

It seems to me that they are better off (at least a little) than the San Francisco Chronicle where the Editor-in-Chief is waving a white flag:

I’m hearing rumors that the San Francisco Chronicle is in big trouble. Apparently, Phil Bronstein, the editor-in-chief, told staff in a recent “emergency meeting” that the news business “is broken, and no one knows how to fix it.”

My fingers are crossed for the InfoWorld guys. And it’s hard not to feel bad for them, despite failing to value their star performer, Jon Udell, who left recently for Microsoft.

IDG has been a deer in the headlights of the Internet 18-wheeler for years. I can imagine this is the first of many similar moves that will happen this year across the whole print market.

Did Infoworld just get slaughtered or saved? And who will be next?

UPDATE: Rafat Ali of PaidContent says this is no rumor. He added, “The worst thing: the staff internally didn’t know about this until this story came out.” Yikes.

SFGate’s Tech Chronicles says, “The announcement is due out Monday.”

Scott Karp observes, “there’s a big gap between a B2B magazine making the transition [to an online-only publishing business] and a local newspaper making it across the chasm. But we’ve got to start somewhere.”

Shel Israel looks back on InfoWorld the magazine with nostalgia, “It was a must-read for the entire IT industry every Monday morning…The death of this publication does not surprise me, but it also does not make me particularly happy.”

Jim Forbes runs through InfoWorld’s editorial history, “In its more than 20-year life, this magazine has been the launchpad for several notable computer journalists including Stewart Alsop, Maggie Canon, John Dvorak, Jonathan Sacks, Ziff Brother’s Investment counselor Michael Miller, PBS’ Mark Stephens (who left InfoWorld with the name of the magazine’s fictional field editor and gossip columnist, Robert Cringely) as well as New York Times technology journalists Laurie Flynn and John Markoff.” He leaves out influential and talented journalists like Steve Gillmor, Jon Udell, Eric Knorr, and current EIC Steve Fox.

PR 2.0 blogger Brian Solis adds, “Knowing Steve Fox and Ephraim Schwartz personally, they will ensure that it continues to be a top information source for IT professionals who rely on qualified news and hands-on reviews.”

Jon Udell offers an empathetic shoulder, “as someone who’s loved and lost a magazine, I just want to say to my friends there who were blindsided and are losing sleep over this: Been there, done that, it’s no fun, good luck.”

John Battelle notes the operating cost savings of going online-only but recognizes the challenge ahead, “When I was running The Standard, InfoWorld was a sister publication, and a good one at that. I really hope the publication thrives online, but its owner, IDG, will have to take painful measures to make it relevant in a world where coverage is owned by online pubs and blogs already deep in the flow…Good luck, guys.”

Tom Murphy hates the blogosphere coverage so far, “News that the print issue of InfoWorld is no more, while not a terrible shock, is very sad. Of course what’s sadder may be the cacophony of Web 2.0 folks pointing their fingers and shouting ‘I told you so’….”. I’m sure this post isn’t helping with that, though that’s not my intent here. Sorry if that’s what it sounds like I’m saying.

David Churbuck says this move fits with IDG’s long term strategy, “it’s not a big surprise, nor, does it mean anything especially dire or negative about the ongoing strength of the InfoWorld franchise online. I was at IDG two years ago, I knew its managers and editors, and the plan at IDG was to go hard in the direction of online at all possible velocity.”

InfoWorld contributor Phil Windley assesses the personnel moves, “Steve Fox, InfoWorld’s Editor-in-Chief has said that very few layoffs will occur since most people will simply work on the online version or the events side of the business (a big focus lately). I suspect those let go will be people who’s expertise is in Quark and other print-only skills.”

UPDATE 2: InfoWorld EIC Steve Fox makes the announcement formal on the Techwatch blog, “Yes, the rumors are true. As of April 2, 2007, InfoWorld is discontinuing its print component. No more printing on dead trees, no more glossy covers, no more supporting the US Post Office in its rush to get thousands of inky copies on subscribers’ desks by Monday morning (or thereabouts). The issue that many of you will receive in your physical mailbox next week — vol. 29, issue 14 — will be the last one in InfoWorld’s storied 29-year history.”

IDG’s Colin Crawford puts the news into perspective amongst several intentional and determined moves down this path, “Recently InfoWorld’s revenue has been predominantly driven by its online and events business. Print no longer is the major product line at InfoWorld. So while the closure of a 27-year print publication is somewhat newsworthy, it is also a natural step in a plan that was put in place 2 years ago”

InfoWorld.com GM Virginia Hines explains how the transition unfolded up to this point, “Over a year ago, we began sharply differentiating the web business from the magazine with a focus on the Web 2.0 cornerstones of community, multimedia, and interactivity. Once we started building those three principles into our web presence the result was so much more compelling and engaging for advertisers and audience alike that the ink-on-paper magazine version paled in comparison. ”

Paul McNamara of InfoWorld’s sister publication Networkworld worries about the future of other IDG publications, “Network World will continue to produce a print edition for the foreseeable future, I am told. In general, I no longer make predictions about the future of print magazines and newspapers, although, I suppose if you were to read the handwriting, you’d find it not on the wall but online.”

IDG President Bob Carrigan adds that IDG has no plans to eliminate any other print titles, but “the trends are not good for print . . . we’re quickly moving to a place where print is not going to be the predominant revenue stream for us.”

Membership has its privileges

Mark Glaser asks his readers this week to submit the answer to the following question:

“What would motivate you to contribute to a citizen media site?”

I can’t imagine that anyone is going to be able to answer that question in an interesting way. It’s the wrong question. It’s kind of like asking why do people sing at church? Or why do people meet their friends at the pub?


Photo: -bartimaeus-

If the church asks you to sing, you sing. If your friends tell you to meet at the pub, you go to the pub. The community and purpose of doing things together is already implied, so you do whatever everyone else in that community does if you want to be a part of it.

Jon Udell starts to dig into the critical mass hurdles for social networks in a recent post where he quotes Gary McGraw saying:

“People keep asking me to join the LinkedIn network, but I’m already part of a network. It’s called the Internet.”

The real question is not about getting people to do things. There are too many things to do and too many people to socialize with in a day already.

The question is about forming meaningful communities and the kinds of things that will help a community flourish. Meaning comes in millions of different shapes and sizes, but there are lots of precedents in terms of ideologies, aesthetics, and methods.

News, for example, is inherently about being first to report on an event. Successful community-based news sites enable people who care enough about a topic to either be the first to report on it or be clued in before less speedy outlets pick up on something. It feeds into a competitive and sometimes gossipy human nature. Just ask your best reporters why they became reporters. Digg appeals to the reporter in all of us.

I used to attend a charity event called Rebuilding Together where groups of people would assemble and fix up houses and schools around the city of San Francisco. There was a core team who selected applications for fix-it team deployments. Then there was a leader who would drive the work to be done by each team at each site. On the chosen date, people would jump on a project and invite their friends to join. It was impressive to see what a focused group could accomplish in a day, fixing plumbing, painting, cleaning, rebuilding fences, etc.

Why did people do it?

There was a purpose. We were helping people truly in need. The commitment was lightweight. It was 1 day a year. It was well organized. I didn’t have to debate with people about how things should be done. The result was impactful, a total overhaul of a building. It was fun. I had a laugh with my friends and met new people.

Often when people start asking how you get to critical mass, they’re losing the plot. Sure, it would be great to worry about scaling a site rather than fighting for a Digg. But if you and your community are doing something unique and valuable, then size really shouldn’t matter. And in many cases, it makes sense to make the community exclusive and smaller rather than bigger and diluted, anyhow.

The question then becomes, “Are you offering a service that a lot of people find unique and valuable?”

I think a lot of publishers fail to understand the size of a potential market, what’s unique about an offering, and the value of that offering to the people who do actually care about it.

Then there’s also the issue of recognizing what you can actually deliver. You have to play to your strengths.

Yahoo! Answers is a good example of that. The idea of getting immediate answers to any question you can think of from real humans is outrageously ambitious. There are lots of ways to get answers to questions out there. But Yahoo! played to its strengths to get it off the ground, then it just took off. It’s easy. It’s fun. It works. And, therefore, it’s meaningful. And now there’s nothing like it out there anywhere.

Of course, not everybody can point a firehose of traffic at a domain, but there are plenty of cases where Yahoo! failed to create a community by pointing a firehose of traffic at it.

So, what makes a meaningful community that has a definitive purpose? Yeah, well, that’s an answer you can get from Cameron Marlow, danah boyd, and a lot of people a lot smarter than me.

Though perhaps this is all just echo blogging and the real question gets to something people already understand. Maybe the question is simply: “How do you make membership in your community desirable?”

Wikipedia defines “privilege” as follows:

A privilege—etymologically “private law” or law relating to a specific individual—is an honour, or permissive activity granted by another person or a government. A privilege is not a right and in some cases can be revoked.

I think the answer is in there somewhere for everyone who is struggling to get their community to do stuff.


Photo:Manne

Top 5 new business ideas

The month of lists has begun, so I decided to rank the business ideas from the last year that could or should be a big deal in the next year. Most of these ideas and companies have actually been around longer than 12 months, but they either reached a certain critical mass or captured my imagination in a new way recently.

1) Scrobbling
All my listening behavior are belong to Last.fm. They figured out how to not only capture what I listen to but also to incentivize me to keep my behavior data with them. Since my listening data is open for other services to use, I am willingly giving Last.fm the power to broker that data with other providers on behalf. That’s a very strong position to be in.

2) Meta ad networks
Feedburner and Right Media figured out that ad networks can be networked into meta networks. Right Media went the extra step and opened up their APIs so that someone can build a white label ad exchange of their own using the Right Media tools. All you need are advertisers and publishers, and you’ve suddenly got a media market of your own. I can’t help but wonder if these guys have stepped into the big leagues with the next really important revenue model.

3) Pay-as-you-go storage, computing, whatever
Amazon impresses me on so many levels even if they don’t know exactly what they’re doing. They are making it happen just by doing smart things with the resources already in their arsenal. Similarly, Flickr understands that the APIs you use to build your web site are the same APIs you want to open up as a service, and it’s paying off handsomely for them. The formula here is one part optimizing resources and two parts confidence that your business won’t crash if you share your core assets with other people. Stir constantly.

4) People-powered knowledge
I really like the Yahoo! Answers experience. I also really like the concept behind MechanicalTurk where knowledge can be distributed as a service. Machines are at their best, in my opinion, when they make humans capable of doing things they couldn’t otherwise do, not least of which is making the universe of human knowledge more accessible.

5) Widget-mania
It wasn’t until I heard about the big revenues GlitterMaker was earning that I realized just how powerful this idea has become the last year or so. Beck’s customizable CD cover reinforced the idea that everything is a tattoo or a tattooable thing if you look at it that way…and many people do. If only I could run AdSense on my forehead.

The strategic role of high quality editorial

Quality editorial is not a growth position for a media company. It may be a competitive advantage. And it will surely be a brand differentiator. But it won’t by nature expand audience or increase revenues. It’s not necessarily even a loyalty control.

Of the many great things the Internet has done for media, it has failed to value trustworthiness enough. Instead, it values speed, plasticity, and access. Information is rewarded when it is first to appear, maleable and distributable in numerous ways, and available through multiple channels — links, feeds, indeces — and through other people.

How is a niche publisher to compete? First, catalyze relationships with and amongst people. Second, leverage the value chain as it is to your advantage. Paying more per word for content that is slow, static and hard to get to is a recipe for failure online.

This is the strategic play that makes the MySpace acquisition seem even smarter than I think Fox was aware of at the time. YouTube has adopted a few of the social aspects that make MySpace successful, but I wonder if it will be able to catalyze those relationships into something more meaningful than a one-upsmanship JackAss competition.

What publishers do understand well is the role a media brand can play in facilitating meaningful activity in a community. The nature of the relationships with and amongst the community members have clearly changed. And high quality editorial is a piece of that relationship, one that reinforces trust and understanding, particularly in niche publishing where it’s harder to find good information.

The easy mistake to make is believing that because you have good information people will come. They might, and they’ll just as quickly leave if you don’t give them a reason to create a relationship with you or other members of your community.

Copycat ad networks threaten Google’s stability

Any successful business model is going to have imitators.  Google knows this as well as anybody.   But now the stranglehold on the distributed ad model is feeling weaker than ever with new competitors every day.

The magic formula = isolate revenue collection system into a platform + make it available to other web sites – share earnings back to transaction/click source.

Yahoo! rolled out a similar offering about a year ago with YPN.  eBay launched their own version recently.  Amazon has had their affiliate program for years.  Kanoodle, IndustryBrains, Feedburner and a host of others all know this solution with their own twist on it.  Media networks such as IDG smartened up to the opportunity, as well.

The magic formula is showing cracks, though.  Click fraud is not being measured effectively by independent audits nor is payment being adjusted to compensate for it.  And Google has no short term incentive to solve the problem just as Microsoft once had no incentive to fix Windows security threats.

Linux gave Microsoft reason to change.  I wonder who will push Google into panic mode.  They may just sleepwalk into the death trap as long as their search market share remains strong.

Though have no doubt that Google can change.  At some point Schmidt’s insistence that Google is a technology company may actually trickle down and create some revenue opportunities that are more service based.  If they can scale their office products for mass adoption and perhaps create a browser optimized for those products, then they will finally have a potential revenue model to match the rhetoric.

The question is whether the market share losses surely in AdSense’s near future will fracture Wall Street’s love affair with the company before they can not only diversify but also stabilize on a mix of technology service revenue streams.

I can’t even imagine the complexity of the cultural war that will wage internally when/if the “technology” part of the business actually becomes a real slice of Google’s revenue pie.  Manufacturing consent will probably work while Google continues to grow.  I’d still hate to be on a “technology” product team at a company where 99% of the revenue comes from media products…wait…from one media product.

The Google Phd’s are probably predicting the copycats, the corporate positioning conflicts and internal competitive challenges as I write this, but are they smart enough to get their Product Managers and Biz Dev guys to help them actually figure out how to solve the problems, or do they just write papers and send long emails with subject lines in all caps?

“CORPORATE STRATEGY RESEARCH STUDY: IMPACT OF ‘TECHNOLOGY’ MARKET POSITION IN THE FACE OF MULTI-FRONT WAR ON ONLY REVENUE STREAM MAY CAUSE INTERNAL STRIFE”

Maybe Microsoft’s MSN team has some advice for Google’s technology product teams about operating in the shadow of the cash cow.