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Re: Business Magazines: Advertising Down, Credibility Up

Tom Foremski — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 05:00:00 -0000

The conundrum business magazines and newspapers face is that their readership is increasing online yet their revenues are falling. Usually both rise. The problem they face is that online advertising fetches less money because advertising itself is not very effective. In the print world it was difficult to measure the effectiveness of advertising. Everyone knew that half of their advertising spend wasn't working but it was difficult to determine which half was which. Online it is very easy to determine which half isn't working. That reduces overall advertising spend for a company. And it can also mean that it is more effective to advertise next to a search box, such as Google's than next to a column of journalism. If you are on Google, you are looking to buy or find something. If you are reading a column of journalism you are likely not looking to buy.

Advertising in business magazines online or offline will in most cases be less effective than advertising on search sites, or other types of sites. And this broader competition for ad dollars online means prices will always be low for ads. So then what will support the work of journalists? It'll have to be subscriptions.

In terms of PR, more bang for the buck may come from social media, blogs, etc. Having an article in Business Week may yield less potential revenue for a client than astute targeting of social media and blogs. But that takes a lot more work and there are many in the PR world that chafe at having to do more for the same amount of money.

Re: Reshaping the Media

Tom Foremski — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 05:00:00 -0000

Paper or electron the distribution channel doesn't matter if you can build a viable business model around it as Politico demonstrates. The media world is becoming a far more complex world.

In addition, as companies recognize they have to become media companies too, they have to be able to challenge the traditional media companies with high quality content in order to win pageviews.

Re: Reshaping the Media

Tom Foremski — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 05:00:00 -0000

Paper or electron the distribution channel doesn't matter if you can build a viable business model around it as Politico demonstrates. The media world is becoming a far more complex world.

In addition, as companies recognize they have to become media companies too, they have to be able to challenge the traditional media companies with high quality content in order to win pageviews.

Re: Reshaping the Media

Tom Foremski — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 05:00:00 -0000

Paper or electron the distribution channel doesn't matter if you can build a viable business model around it as Politico demonstrates. The media world is becoming a far more complex world.

In addition, as companies recognize they have to become media companies too, they have to be able to challenge the traditional media companies with high quality content in order to win pageviews.

Re: Web 2.0 This Week (June 26 - July 1)

Tom Foremski — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 05:00:57 -0000

Nice compendium but why all the blind links? I think you should say where the articles you are pointing to come from, rather than hiding them until mouse-over or click. It helps give credit where credit is due, imho.

Re: Technorati Taken to Task for Monitoring Service

Tom Foremski — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 21:29:07 -0000

Chip, thanks for reading my midnight tappings. I wrote the post mainly to highlight the fact that there is still an unresolved issue within the blogosphere about money and monetizing the "free" work of others. I'm not taking Technorati to task for what it is doing (although Hirshberg's relentless pitching was tedious)merely providing the blogosphere with a peek at the other side of the coin.

Re: Technorati Taken to Task for Monitoring Service

Tom Foremski — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 21:29:07 -0000

Re: The disruptiveness of doing what you love

Tom Foremski — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:01:33 -0000

Well, I've drained several savings accounts and am working my way through emptying my pension plan because I can't stop doing what I'm doing and I don't want to take a day-job like 99.999999 per cent of the Blogosphere.

We will have a professional media that can pay for itself because otherwise everything becomes partisan and skewed. Also, the blogosphere doesn't have to get up every day and do this. Journalists do it every day.

Everybody can be their own courtroom lawyer, but we know what the punchline to that one is. Similaraly, a society that relies on bloggers for its media and decimates its media professionals is foolish. Democracy relies on the quality of its media. Society uses media to think through big problems and we have some massive ones to deal with.

Re: Some Fair and Balanced Questions for News Corp.

Tom Foremski — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:10:36 -0000

Kara, congrats on the site, it looks great! Was wondering what exactly are your questions for Mr Murdoch...?
BTW if he succeeds, it will be tougher times for the Financial Times.

Re: An iPod Rival With an Edge

Tom Foremski — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:23:25 -0000

I have grown to love Yahoo Music, the basic plan is just $5 per month and I can discover tons of new (and old) music.

I now hate my CD collection because it takes up lots of space and I can never find the CD I want because of my bad filing system and bad habit of not putting the CD in the right box(!)

I don't know why anyone would want to pay Apple 99c per song when I can play nearly any song I want, for $5/month.

Yahoo Music doesn't work with my iPod so this sounds perfect, I'm giving my iPod away.

Re: SEO PR – missing the target?

Tom Foremski — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 09:34:44 -0000

Morgan, you ask the right questions, and you are right: people mistake search engine ranking with influence.

Re: Enterprise and the cult of the amateur

Tom Foremski — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:11:52 -0000

You should see Keen at the Stanford Summit, he completely blew himself up. Keen said that Prince is now giving away his music and that will prevent millions from getting access to Prince's music except through $125 show tickets in Las Vegas! I think that debate, in which Gilder handed Keen his head, puts an end to his nonsense.

http://alwayson.goingon.com/page/display/15568?param=session/123

Re: Enterprise and the cult of the amateur

Tom Foremski — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:11:52 -0000

You should see Keen at the Stanford Summit, he completely blew himself up. Keen said that Prince is now giving away his music and that will prevent millions from getting access to Prince&#039s music except through $125 show tickets in Las Vegas! I think that debate, in which Gilder handed Keen his head, puts an end to his nonsense.

http://alwayson.goingon.com/page/display/15568?pa...

Re: Death of Journalism – Blame Google? No. Ask Google to Lead? Yes.

Tom Foremski — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 03:12:30 -0000

John, when I worked at as a reporter for the Financial Times, some days I would write 6 stories, and over night a news analysis or feature. In SIlicon Valley there is no shortage of news stories. With 300 editorial staff I could own Silicon Valley, the 10th richest economic region on the planet. I have good friends at the SF Chron and respect their work. The problem is in the legacy costs of running a newspaper business and the slow development of new media business models, imho.

Re: Death of Journalism - Blame Google? No. Ask Google to Lead? Yes.

Tom Foremski — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 03:12:30 -0000

Re: Death of Journalism - Blame Google? No. Ask Google to Lead? Yes.

Tom Foremski — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:12:30 -0000

Re: Social News

Tom Foremski — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:01:48 -0000

Nice summary of the evening. An interesting point is about the value creation. These media sites don't make a heck of a lot of money, so how can newspapers and magazine make money with the current online business models? Newspaper web sites are growing in readership but that increase cannot support their costs of doing business. So how will we pay for professional journalism...?

Re: Top Ten Reasons Bloggers Should Avoid Social Bookmarking

Tom Foremski — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:53:46 -0000

It is too much work to tag my copy and add the Digg this! stuff. I always concentrate on the content. If it is good enough it will find its way to people. All that traffic from search sites or Digg-type sites is fly-by-night. I get more than 90 per cent of my traffic through bookmarks and RSS, my readers know where I live and they come to me and that's the way it should be, imho.

Re: Social News

Tom Foremski — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:49:18 -0000

I totally agree. It seems somehow backward to give away breaking news but charge for old news(!) I think both should be given away...
As you say, newspapers have tons of material in archives and the search engines will serve it up for ever and ever. It's a shame not to let the search engines establish your brand wherever, and all over the internet.
Soon, many of these things will seem obvious, but for now, they are counter intuitive to many of the media establishment. But that is changing.

Re: Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions

Tom Foremski — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:49:56 -0000

How will cutting journalists and adding content management jobs stem financial losses?

The San Francisco Chronicle cut 100 newsroom jobs this summer and is losing about $1m a week. The economic model for newspapers is being demolished.

You have to follow the money. Adding jobs in one department doesn't make up for the loss of advertising revenues. It increases the costs of doing business in today's many-media online world which in turn increases the financial stresses on the business and increases the likelihood of failure.

The fact is that the new media business models of today, cannot support the legacy cost structure of most of today's established media companies.

We have to find a way to capture the value that professional journalism contributes to society. Google AdSense and other ad networks don't come anywhere close to capturing that value and returning it to the content producers.

This is one of the toughest problems we face as a society.

Media is how our society "thinks" and it helps us make the right decisions. We have some huge issues facing us, not only the political and international issues, but also global warming, aging populations, etc, etc. Without good media we cannot make good decisions.

An army of citizen journalists can help to contribute to the creation of quality media but it cannot fill the information gap that the loss of professional media is creating.

In the software engineering community there is a very descriptive phrase: garbage in, garbage out.

Re: Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions

Tom Foremski — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:49:56 -0000

How will cutting journalists and adding content management jobs stem financial losses?

The San Francisco Chronicle cut 100 newsroom jobs this summer and is losing about $1m a week. The economic model for newspapers is being demolished.

The fact is that the new media business models of today, cannot support the legacy cost structure of most of today's established media companies.

This is one of the toughest problems we face as a society.

An army of citizen journalists can help to contribute to the creation of quality media but it cannot fill the information gap that the loss of professional media is creating.

In the software engineering community there is a very descriptive phrase: garbage in, garbage out.

Re: Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions

Tom Foremski — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:49:56 -0000

How will cutting journalists and adding content management jobs stem financial losses?

The San Francisco Chronicle cut 100 newsroom jobs this summer and is losing about $1m a week. The economic model for newspapers is being demolished.

The fact is that the new media business models of today, cannot support the legacy cost structure of most of today's established media companies.

This is one of the toughest problems we face as a society.

An army of citizen journalists can help to contribute to the creation of quality media but it cannot fill the information gap that the loss of professional media is creating.

In the software engineering community there is a very descriptive phrase: garbage in, garbage out.

Re: Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions

Tom Foremski — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:38:10 -0000

Mark, the fact that you and I can make a living as journalists doesn't mean much in the context of the fact that an old media company cannot make a living in the new media world.

I'm a journalist with a laptop in a bedroom (and you?). A San Francisco Chronicle company has 300 journalists, plus 60 people just to publish SFGate.com, its online site, and hundreds of other staff, office buildings, pension plans, printing presses, etc.

No way can this cost structure be supported by new media economies. Take a look at Henry Blodget's by-the-numbers analysis of the New York Times Company over at Silicon Alley Insider.

Adding digital media management jobs won't save the New York Times or any other media company--it adds to the costs of doing business. It will accelerate the demise of many media businesses.

Simon: Yes, many US media companies have been way over-staffed, part of the job cuts is in relation to that; and yes, journalists need more skills, to become what I call media engineers, part software engineer-part journalist. Yet most journalists can barely type...they certainly can't spell.

Mark Deuze: Yes, these technologies, like many others, are designed to replace the work of humans. That is exactly why technologies are developed (not all) so that it becomes less expensive to do business.

Disruptive technologies such as the Internet, disrupt because they are so much better than the old way of doing things. The Internet is a media technology and so that is where we see the disruption, in the media world.

And just as in other industries that faced disruption, the PC/microcomputer against the minicomputer and mainframe companies--you can see the train wreck in front of you but you cannot slow down, downsize, change tracks fast enough to get out of the way.

That's why it's called a disruptive technology and that's why the PC/microcomputer wrecked so many computer companies, even mighty IBM had to reinvent itself as an "IT services" company to survive. That's why the old media world is lost.

Journalists will survive and transition to the new world but their employers won't. And the new journalism jobs will be well paid and will be different, part software engineer part media professional.

Re: Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions

Tom Foremski — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:38:10 -0000

Mark, the fact that you and I can make a living as journalists doesn't mean much in the context of the fact that an old media company cannot make a living in the new media world.

No way can this cost structure be supported by new media economies. Take a look at Henry Blodget's by-the-numbers analysis of the New York Times Company over at Silicon Alley Insider.

Adding digital media management jobs won't save the New York Times or any other media company--it adds to the costs of doing business. It will accelerate the demise of many media businesses.

Re: Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions

Tom Foremski — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:38:10 -0000

Mark, the fact that you and I can make a living as journalists doesn't mean much in the context of the fact that an old media company cannot make a living in the new media world.

I'm a journalist with a laptop in a bedroom (and you?). A San Francisco Chronicle company has 300 journalists, plus 60 people just to publish SFGate.com, its online site, and hundreds of other staff, office buildings, pension plans, printing presses, etc.

No way can this cost structure be supported by new media economies. Take a look at Henry Blodget's by-the-numbers analysis of the New York Times Company over at Silicon Alley Insider.

Adding digital media management jobs won't save the New York Times or any other media company--it adds to the costs of doing business. It will accelerate the demise of many media businesses.