Future of Publications

June 24, 2008 | Posted by: Tom Rice

Much has been made about the fate of the publication landscape and how everything is going online. The DotCom bust in the early part of the decade seemed to precipitate the trend with the extinction of many tech PR favorites such as Inter@ctiveWeek, Upside and Sm@rt Reseller. Recent news about Network Computing getting folded into InformationWeek; VARBusiness getting folded into CRN and Business 2.0 closing down, among other changes, has created a certain apprehension among PR professionals about where they can pitch and place their clients.

As we all know, these publications used to count on big dollars from tech vendors for ads but with tightening budgets and an industry-demand to better measure marketing spend, the model had to change.

While you mainly read all the bad news on this topic, there have been some success stories too. This article from the May 5 edition of the New York Times that speaks to IDG's transition from print to an "online first" business model. It's great to see how well IDG is doing with there online ad revenue. Online ads now make up 52% of the revenue generated by InfoWorld. Below is an interesting excerpt from the piece that features a quote from Eric Knorr discussing the shift from long-form to short-form journalism at InfoWorld.

"Yet as a Web-only publication, InfoWorld is very different from the bygone print edition. Gone, Mr. Knorr says, are the long pieces of more than 3,000 words, with anecdotes and narrative, examining how technology had transformed some company or industry. Instead, he said, the key online is packaging information into "digestible chunks," typically of no more than a page of text or so, sometimes in lists of "10 things to do" to solve some technology problem in companies."

Another publication that I came across recently, Ars Technica, looks like it has a solid model for success in this new publishing world. The site is very clean and covers main regular technology topics such as hardware, security, Business IT as well as a lot of Mac-related coverage. The site looks like it mainly uses a system of outside writers and freelancers to write the content. The site is build around shorter news stories but they also have book reviews, product reviews, buyer's guides, etc. Very user friendly site with lots of visuals.

In any event, I'm sure the publication world will continue to evolve and the best thing we can do as PR professionals is adapt with this change and help our Clients with what we've always done best - help them reach their customer.