The Mile Markers Keep Whizzing Past

Those of us in the business don't need reminders, but the disruption of the media industry by digital technology rolls on unabated even after a decade or more of churn. And the rate of change just keeps accelerating as legacy media firms remain in a perpetual struggle to keep their footing.

So just for the record, a couple more mile markers whizzed by this week:

Online streaming will surpass DVD's in movie consumption this year, but like the print vs. web advertising shift, at much smaller revenues.

Bloomberg's BusinessWeek reported on March 21st that Apple's iPad outsold Hewlett-Packard PC's in the fourth quarter of 2011. HP is the world's number one maker of Wintel PCs and BusinessWeek notes that if you consider the iPad a PC subsitute then "Apple...is the biggest PC maker in the world."

And while these latest developments are not immediately related to the graph below, the broader wake of this creative destruction certainly tells stories like those cited by Derek Thompson recently in The Atlantic. (As tough as these revenue numbers are the circulation figures are equally gruesome as Thompson notes.)

The Week: Back to the Future

Amidst the news of the NY Times latest “pay-per-view” scheme the same paper ran a fascinating piece on an upstart newsweekly called The Week that’s meeting surprising, if modest success at a time when periodicals and certainly general newsweeklies are in steep decline.

If you haven’t seen a copy, The Week is a tightly edited digest of what happened in the world the preceding week. It covers hard news, politics, culture and more; mostly by citing, mashing-up, and sometimes excerpting content from other sources. While their model works better in print than online, here’s an example of what they do: What happens if a Japan-sized earthquake hits California?, or this on business news: Is Groupon really worth $25 billion?

Intriguing about The Week is that it is in many ways a reprise of the publishing strategy envisioned by Henry Luce and his original partner Briton Haden for Time magazine in 1923. A story well told in The Publisher by Alan Brinkley.

As access to news and information explode The Week is finding, as Time did in its day, that readers value both the utility and art that sharp editors bring to netting out the stuff they’re interested in.

Governing Magazine Takes 1st at Neal Awards

Was very proud to receive word that Governing magazine took 1st place at the 57^th Annual Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards competition, in the “Best Single Article” category.

The article receiving recognition is an excellent feature by Governing senior editor Zach Patton and tells a clear, straightforward story about Colorado Springs, Colorado and what happens to a local government when driven by an ailing economy and tax adverse voters to do “less with less”. Published last September it’s a prescient piece now being played out by increasing numbers of states and localities throughout the country. It’s also a great example of the kind of reporting that Governing’s talented writers and editors consistently turn out.

e.Republic Moving to Cloud Based Technologies

The July/August cover story of Folio magazine is about the increasing use of cloud based technologies in the publishing field and does a good job outlining various steps we have taken at e.Republic to move to an entire set of "Software as a Service" (SaaS) type applications for much of our technology infrastructure.

In this day and age a publishing firm's technology platform is a central to its overall business strategy and while any technology solution has tradeoffs we've been pleased with how this deployment has worked for us since we began this overhaul of our tech platforms two years ago.

The products we use include Clickability for content management, Eloqua for marketing automation and Salesforce for a whole range of apps including sales and customer relationship management as well subscription and event registration management.

The Folio article details some of the tangible benefits we've seen from this migration. Bottom line, it has allowed us to focus on using our technology to effectively meet business objectives as opposed to supporting an increasingly expanding IT shop.

Technology Giveth, Taketh and Perhaps Giveth Again?

This week Apple’s IPad goes on sale and it got me thinking back to the debut of the original Macintosh computer in January 1984. I can’t remember what teams played in the Superbowl that year but I vividly recall the jaw dropping “1984” Apple ad that aired early in the game. At the time I was in the startup days of a small publishing firm. We were producing regional magazines the old fashion way with clunky typesetting machines, hot wax, pica poles and Xacto knives. Apple’s new computer got my attention.

It took a few years but before long the Macintosh revolutionized our company and the entire publishing industry, drastically driving down production costs and exponentially increasing creative capacity. The Mac ushered in something close to a renaissance in publishing and I don’t think firms like mine would have been able to grow and thrive without the revolutionary technologies that eventually came out of that new machine.

Well technology has no emotional attachments and hasn’t been kind to the publishing world in the last decade. Some debate if the newspaper or magazine will even survive.

In this context the release of the IPad and the next generation of tablet devices is a big deal. While it’s too early to say for sure, my bet is that devices like the IPad and the new software and apps they’ll usher in are laying the foundation for the next renaissance in publishing.

To get a sense of this check out this recent item from Paid Content that does of quick round up of 15 publishers and how they are re-thinking the magazine. Very cool stuff; especially the clips from Wired and Sports Illustrated.

Media in the Middle

In a recent interview with Naomi Reiter of eMedia Vitals I talked about the need for B2B media companies to increasingly focus on building and sustaining professional communities. Certainly the need for a media firm to be a trusted source for credible and relevant news and analysis remains vital. But the future of this business requires much more:

eMV: In what direction do you see the industry moving?

McKenna: The entire nature of B2B media is changing. In the past, it was largely built around a model of “informing” markets or readers. Magazines and events were largely built around disseminating information, and “social networks” were a secondary consideration. But the Web has made information a commodity. News distribution and analysis is not, in itself, a competitive advantage any longer.

The future of the business is more about “communitizing” markets. I’m not talking about social media, but using all elements of a media platform—both high tech and high touch—to effectively engage with audiences to help them solve their business and professional challenges.

eMV: Can you give an example?

McKenna: e.Republic has launched several very narrowly focused “gated communities” of government IT professionals. These communities address specific business challenges faced by their members. Our role is to facilitate this community of professionals through a number of different services, including conducting specific research on topics of concern to them, providing expert analysis and hosting both online and in-person forums or leadership networks. By building these communities in a way that dynamically engages both readers and advertisers, we’ve been able to effectively monetize these efforts.

Yes, publishing information remains important, but the future of business media centers on being much more engaged with our audience and delivering greater practical value to them. Media comes from the Latin word for “middle”. I like to say that the new model is about “media in the middle,” meaning that the role of media brands should focus on building and sustaining professional communities. Successful media companies have always done this to some degree; however, it is central to our mission going forward.

eMV: Has the paradigm shifted permanently?

McKenna: No question. A media company can’t just assume that it is delivering value to its audience. All the discussion over what or if readers will pay for content is evidence of this. What is the real value my media company brings to the market? It’s a tough question to ask. A media firm needs to have a clear-eyed view of what value it’s delivering to both readers and advertisers. Once you start down the road in answering this question, you’re looking at entirely new business models.

The entire interview can be found here.

Media Predictions for 2010

Shortly before Holidays Folio ran a collection of predictions for the magazine and media business in 2010. Contributed by a slew folks in the industry the comments are all over the map and worth a look.

Clearly the media business will continue to be driven by dynamics that demand companies undertake substantial change if they are going to win going forward. As I note in the Folio piece, publishers will see increased competition for audience attention from new sources that are springing up with accelerating frequency on the web and are amplified by the growth of apps like Twitter and Ning and increasingly versatile and ubiquitous mobile technologies.

More and more competition for readers and members of our "communities" are coming from non traditional sources and upping the pressure on publishers to re-think what's truly unique and important about their businesses. Also,while money is tight for most of us these days, this is time when its critical to invest in technology, content and intelligent new media programs that provide the strategic platforms and initiatives that position our companies for future success.