Comments on: How Fortune, Forbes and BusinessWeek Can Save Themselves

By: The Buzz Bin: Newspapers Are Like Department Stores - Virginia Free Press

The Buzz Bin: Newspapers Are Like Department Stores - Virginia Free Press — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:50:50 +0000

[...] some that may not be enough. Sarah Lacy has advice at TechCrunch that’s a bit more aggressive but sounds like a perfect business model for succeeding online [...]

By: Article dump « The New Boredom

Article dump « The New Boredom — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:48:03 +0000

[...] anyways, I’m glad some folks are calling out the suckers from the old school on how they might at least slow the nose dive of print media: http://www.tech...ave-themselves/ [...]

By: Old Age to Online Modern Age - History of Books | Order Book Online

Old Age to Online Modern Age - History of Books | Order Book Online — Sat, 16 May 2009 08:59:43 +0000

[...] How Fortune, Forbes and BusinessWeek Can Save Themselves This includes books, and viewing artwork. Besides books, magazines, and artwork live forever. Bibles are hundreds of years old, but how long will an online blog entry last, maybe twenty years at most on a server? There is still value in creating timeless. While I prefer to read from books and magazines the old fashion way, the simple truth is that printed publications are dying. [...]

By: Synack

Synack — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:11:33 +0000

LOL. But seriously Sarah, can’t you write a single post without going on and on about yourself. This obsession renders your writing unbearably unreadable. You should get a psyc evaluation, seriously.

By: David A Hubbard

David A Hubbard — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:14:17 +0000

I agree Joe.

By: RickM

RickM — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:40:35 +0000

I think that both the newspaper and magazine businesses are dying.

The only reason I get Fortune is because they offered it to me at $9.95 a year and in a week moment I subscribed.

I read the Bernie Madoff story online before ever receiving the magazine. IMHO Forbes will be the only one of the three that survives.

By: Josh Bersin

Josh Bersin — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:57:51 +0000

I very much disagree. These business magazines bring tremendous value to business people. They do in-depth research, they analyze data, and they write meaningful and interesting articles that give us insights and perspective.

And by the way, doing this is not easy – “bloggers” do not do this type of work. They typically post opinions (like the one above), which are only a very small percentage of what magazines do.

As for the business model, I agree with Murdoch. It’s pretty silly to give your content away and “hope” to make money through advertising (by the way, giving away 70% of the revenue to Google in the process). I think well run magazines with good content can and should charge for it, and not get sucked into the “everything is free” approach.

As a business reader, I am very happy to pay for great content (I’m reading it for business value, not entertainment). The “glossy news” page which the writer above refers to is what I’d call “worthless news.” I can find that in my local newspaper, on CNN, or anywhere else – and if you think you’re going to make money selling Ads by syndicating this type of content, you are in a different business model – one driven by eyeballs. These “aggregating” portals (Guy Kawasaki for example) are going to be competing with thousands of other “Rss readers” out there, and that is a business model driven by technology, not really content.

Its a tough transition, but I do believe the ultimately “good content” will be worth paying for, and this is where these companies should go.

By: Kawika Holbrook

Kawika Holbrook — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:07:31 +0000

Pasted wrong link to Om’s article. It’s here: http://gigaom.c...make-it-happen/

By: Kawika Holbrook

Kawika Holbrook — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:00:04 +0000

Om Malik wrote an report recently on the state of color e-books. He found “a group of researchers at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio came up with a new technology that allows them to re-create the brightness and color capabilities of paper-based media.” Those researchers claim they can “mimic the experience of glossy magazines.” http://www.tech...-with-nextstop/

By: joe

joe — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:07:10 +0000

There is more money in advertising in magazines than online. Most people completely ignore online advertising and it is very ineffective. But if a magazine advertisement is done correctly, it will have a very good marketing effect. Besides, if advertisers want people to buy real things with real money, looking through a physical magazine will have a more powerful effect of connecting the potential customer to the brand. Online is just visual senses, but magazines also appeal to the sense of touch and ownership. There will always be a need for business cards, catalogs, postcard flyers, and its about good graphic art as well. We can’t all live virtually and be jacked to computer servers like in the matrix. What happens when your laptop battery on the beach dies. For the rich, a vacation and enjoying luxury is about stepping away from work and relaxing. This includes books, and viewing artwork. Besides books, magazines, and artwork live forever. Bibles are hundreds of years old, but how long will an online blog entry last, maybe twenty years at most on a server? There is still value in creating timeless writings.

By: Kawika Holbrook

Kawika Holbrook — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:05:48 +0000

Remember the copy of USA Today that updated itself in “Minority Report”? A magazine version of that should help everyone’s business models. Just make sure it translates Mandarin and works underwater; in a few decades, we’ll need those features.

By: G.O.

G.O. — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:43:25 +0000

I hope so!

By: Jughead

Jughead — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:42:11 +0000

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch says “the current days of the Internet will soon be over” referencing the fact that corporate media websites cannot continue to survive under their current failing business model. Murdoch believes newspapers, magazines and other corporate publishers will have no other choice than to charge subscriptions going forward. He also specifically referenced the 360,000 people who downloaded the WSJ Apple application as targets for fee/subscriptions. Murdoch is dead serious as News Corp took a beating with a 47% slice off last quarters profits. They are definitely circling the wagons, as I would imagine many other big publishers are.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, if that is the case, then corporate media publishers better get their shit together and provide value added services such as advanced search and discovery and also migrate portions of their online publishing to online video content…ASAP .

Whether or not Murdoch is totally off base or spot on, there is no question that “the times, they are a changin’.

By: Edward

Edward — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:38:42 +0000

The key is that Print or Online is just the media. The content is what is important. The newspapers and magazines seem to forget that.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Do you really need to start your article with a curse word? I mean seriously folks… where’s the professionalism?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:38:18 +0000

I would also purchase “Tech Crunch” magazine, every time i am at the airport.

By: sh

sh — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:15:06 +0000

Why not offer a bargain priced Kindle and put all the newspapers and mags on Kindle. There could be a newspaper and magazine consortium offering cheap Kindles plus a monthly subscription fee, so they are making money on the downloads each month. Given enough mass, Kindle might become affordable.

By: The Buzz Bin: Newspapers Are Like Department Stores : J’s Notes

The Buzz Bin: Newspapers Are Like Department Stores : J’s Notes — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:00:46 +0000

[...] some that may not be enough. Sarah Lacy has advice at TechCrunch that’s a bit more aggressive but sounds like a perfect business model for succeeding online [...]

By: Tom Vellaringattu

Tom Vellaringattu — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:53:59 +0000

Like all journalists you are forgetting the issue here – ad revenue. The way the newspapers and magazines do advertising online is wrong. They need to try to sell smaller banner and keyword text ads page by page for companies that match the context of the content on that page. Relying on Google and other ad agencies will not bring enough money to these online properties. Every page on a site indexed by search engines have a separate value depending on the page rank, number of monthly visits and link backs. You need to be able to value each page and sell ads on a permanent monthly fee basis on each one of these pages. Search engines may not like them but that is not your concern. Unless every page is monetized separately you will not survive.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:32:36 +0000

I love the internet. I live on the internet. I make my living because of the internet. But I still like picking up a copy of business week and forbes from time to time, in my hands, sitting on an airplane, on the sofa or on the can. And I don’t mind paying a couple of bucks for that, just to get away from my computer once in a while.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:25:39 +0000

If someone wants a print copy let them download a printable pdf. I doubt people would cancel a subscription if that were an option.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:21:49 +0000

I wouldn’t call 60 min “deep investigative journalism”.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:16:57 +0000

Currently it’s the only way to see the results from past rankings. Their site doesn’t offer this data from say 2 years ago. I hear they are working on that though.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:15:21 +0000

Nothing discussed here, respectfully, is a new or original idea. Print v. digital content has been debated at length for ages.

What I did find compelling is the question of intangible v. tangible. Tangible will always make a compelling argument. The question is what form will “print” take in the future. Is digital paper, for example, the “two birds” answer.

By: mark

mark — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:10:27 +0000

blimey – this isn’t rocket science – has the entire business model of web 3.0 passed everyone by?

of course blogs themselves don’t make money (and probably won’t for a few more years) – but you’ll eventually leverage the exposure and data – U2 make 10% of their income from music sales – they don’t give a fig if people download their album – newspapers will eventually follow exactly the same model

bear in mind this is a global enterprise as well – so times all numbers by 200

I haven’t worked out what 25% of the consulting, public speaking, t-shirts, semantic web apps and myriad other fees – thousands of bloggers will create (with 0 overhead) – but it’s a lot