The excellence craze

(Editor's Note: A custom publisher interviewed me last week for its company blog. As it turns out, at least one executive at the company wasn't crazy about my thoughts on the state of publishing. So the company opted not to publish the interview. I, on the other hand, am crazy about my thoughts on the state of publishing. So I'm posting the interview here.)

Question: Content marketing: Integrating print forms, such as a magazine published by a brand, with digital platforms. What kinds of trends are you seeing?

Paul Conley: I don't see much interesting in terms of integration. It seems to me that electronic content has surpassed print in most respects ... particularly quality. There are exceptions (long-form narrative, for instance, still works best in print.) But very little of the print world is making a successful expansion into digital content. Rather, it seems to me that most brands have digital products that are becoming much better than their print products.

Here's why:

Traditional, print-based custom publishing is primarily a way to serve an existing, captive audience. Whether it's an airline magazine stuck in the slot in front of your plane seat, or the four-color magazine that you get every quarter when you join a trade association, the print product is designed to serve an existing audience. A custom-published magazine is a perk that an association gives to members, it's a reward that a company gives to customers.

That made sense given the traditional tools that custom publishers had: print magazines, mailing lists, distribution systems run by clients, etc.

In addition, traditional, print-based custom publications existed for years as part of a very small media universe. This is particularly true in B2B, where an industry might have had one or two trade publications and one or two custom publications serving the entire marketplace.

But with the rise of the content-marketing or brand-journalism movement, suddenly everyone could be a publisher. Companies that would never have spent the money needed to produce a custom-published print magazine, began leaping into online publishing at an extraordinary rate. I saw a study recently that said 26% of B2B marketing budgets in the U.S. are now tied to content marketing. I doubt that print-based custom publications every got more than 1% of the total B2B marketing spend in this country.

Obviously, brands are not dedicating that level of their marketing budget to reach existing customers. Instead, brands have learned rapidly that they can use content as a lead-generation tool. Instead of putting an article in a magazine and sending it their customers, they distribute it online, in social media, through content-aggregation services and syndication networks. They track who has read it, who passed it on, who signed up for more information, etc.

At first, this worked quite well and rather easily. It wasn't expensive. It was certainly cheaper than traditional advertising or custom publishing. But as the early adopters found success, everyone jumped in.

This has led to what I think of as "the excellence craze." In B2B, where I make my living, it seems like every company in every tiny niche of every industry has become a content creator. There are a thousand voices competing for very small audiences.

There's only one way to compete in that environment -- to be extraordinarily good. The only way I can ensure that my voice is heard is if my content is fantastic. That's completely new for B2B, where both trade publishers and custom publishers have seldom felt the need to be great. In a market with only three of four voices, only a crazy person would spend the money to become great. It was good enough to not be the worst.

I'm seeing money spent on content that is vastly more engaging than what was available just a few years ago. The other day I reviewed a bunch of material that UPS created to win customers in the pharmaceutical-logistics world. There were white papers and videos and loads of other items. And they were all great. Now UPS has an extraordinarily large budget. You would expect them to be able to spend the money to be great. But I see similar levels of greatness at loads of small businesses, consulting companies, etc.

All this is a roundabout way of saying this: brands that have put X amount of effort into producing print products are learning that they have to put 10 times that effort into producing electronic content if they want to compete.

Thus the electronic products (Websites, microsites, videos, podcasts, social-media campaigns, white papers, blogs, etc.) are of much higher quality than the print products that share the same brand name.

Question: That surprises me. I would have expected you to predict that the demand for higher quality electronic content would be coming soon, but you’re saying it’s already here. So how are these companies achieving higher quality in content? Especially the smaller businesses that may not have big budgets?

Paul Conley: There's really only one way to get higher quality content. You have to pay for it. What seems to be happening is that the giant brands (UPS, IBM, etc.) are pouring considerable resources into creating high-end material to use for content marketing. Often that involves hiring a content staff. For example, Intel recently launched a news service and hired a number of well-known journalists to run it. Folks like that are following the Symantec model. Symantec is a big player in tech-security news.

But not every company, even the large ones, are bringing content creators in house. Rather, they seem to be spending money on middle men. Sometimes those are well-established players in the advertising and public relations space like Interbrand. (Interbrand, by the way, runs one of the best content-marketing sites I know. Check out BrandChannel.) Sometimes these middle men are newer players ... boutique agencies that specialize in a vertical or a particular medium. LaunchSquad and SocialTract are among the companies in that space.

The smallest brands seem to be the ones that are most likely to do direct hiring. They're recruiting "social media experts" and such to create content. If you look through the ads in places like MediaBistro you'll find lots of gigs like that ... decent jobs for folks with little to no experience. These gigs don't pay a lot. Maybe they pay around $50,000 a year fully loaded. But most brands in B2B can take that money from their ad or marketing budget and move into content marketing in a big way. Maybe they drop the print ads they've been running in a trade magazine to pay for it. But what they get is constant, all-day interaction with their target audience through digital platforms.

The end result of all this is that there's a battle for folks with content-creation skills in digital media. A newspaper reporter with 25 years experience in print is nearly unemployable today. But someone who can write, record audio and video, and has worked with Twitter and Facebook for even a year can pick and choose among lots of opportunities. They can go to work for big brands, middle men or small firms.

Question: Do you expect this trend to higher quality will continue for the next five years?

Paul Conley: I do. The only alternative is to go with the low-cost models offered by the content farms. Those companies (DemandMedia, Seed, etc.) are likely to move into B2B just like they have made tremendous inroads in B2C. But those companies are volume plays. Their material is cheap ... but not very good. It's perfectly appropriate for search-driven content. But you can't engage an audience with it.

Question: Also, what kinds of devices are audiences viewing this type of content on? Are you seeing more content being created for specific devices, such as mobile or iPad? Are they getting any traction?

Paul Conley: I think it's too early to say. You may remember that I wrote on my blog for a long time that I expected we would soon see "an iPod of reading," a device that would change the way we consumed text, just like the iPod changed how we consumed audio. Well that day is clearly upon us. The iPad and the upcoming competitors will change how we read. They are already doing so. Most importantly, they are changing how we find content. I'm fascinated by Chris Anderson's idea that the Web era has ended. Apps may spell the end of search, serendipity, and the possibility of a nobody becoming a major content creator overnight. The Web gave us all that. But apps may take it away.

But as much as these new devices may change things, we can't say yet just how they will change things. It's sort of like those very early days of the Web browser. Anyone paying attention then knew that something remarkable was about to happen. But most of what did happen turned out to be different from what we expected.

But the smart players today aren't waiting around to see how things will turn out. Smart brands are already creating interesting app-based content. I still read and interact with a ton of content on my laptop at work and home. But when I'm not sitting at a desk, I read news (NYTimes and Bloomberg), shop (FreshDirect), plan meals (Jamie Oliver), exercise (RoundTimer), and play games (SmartGo) through branded apps.

But those apps probably don't represent what the market will look like in just a few years.

That's why one of my pet peeves is when executives talk about "needing a strategy" before they do something with apps or with Twitter. That's the same sort of thing that media folks said for years about the Web. But apps and social media will leave you behind, just like the Web did.You don't need a strategy. You need to get excited about possibility. If you wait until some platform has traction, you'll find that the way it gained traction was by spinning its wheels for awhile on top of your carcass.

Predictions old and new

(Editor's note: As many of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook already know, my mother passed away on Dec. 30. Since then I've been overwhelmed by the kindness I've received from friends and acquaintances in both the real and virtual worlds. Thank you all.

As my Ma took a turn for the worse in mid-December, much of my working life had to be put on hold. So I wound up running late on many things ... including a long-promised follow-up to my predictions about 2009. But as Ma taught me, there's "a time to die ... a time to mourn" and a time to get back to work. So with no further ado, let's look back at 2009 and make some guesses about 2010. )

I hate to say I told you so, but ....

As 2008 turned into 2009, I wrote a a lengthy piece in which I argued that "the B2B industry as we know it is about to collapse."

If you've never read that piece, I'd ask you to do so now. If you have read it, then you know I was predicting a systemwide failure in B2B. The problem, it seemed to me, was clear: Too many people had been borrowing too much money and making too many preposterous assumptions about the industry. Complicating matters was that far too many B2B journalists -- who are the core of the business -- had failed to keep up with the changes in editorial.

Furthermore, I said that I'd grown remarkably disappointed in the majority of Web-only publishers who had emerged in B2B. Simply put, although such companies had mastered things like content aggregation, most of them had failed to move to the next level.

That's what I said

So let's review.

I made three specific predictions about 2009. They were:

1. The B2B publishing industry -- which is now dominated by giant print companies and smaller Web-only companies -- is about to collapse.
2. When the dust settles, B2B journalism will still be here -- but many of the companies that make up the industry will be gone.
3. The dominant business models of both the past and present will fail.

As troubling and unlikely as those predictions might have seemed in December 2008, it's safe to say that I was right.

In 2009 there were bankruptcies, shutdowns and creditors-take-control actions (Doubledown, Cygnus, Questex, Milo, Incisive, Advanstar), there were staff reductions (Cygnus, RBI, UBM, IDG, Edgell, Access Intelligence), there were salary freezes and pay cuts (Cygnus, Penton, RBI), there were closures of print products (Ziff, RBI, Penton, Crain, UBM, CMPMedica, Randall-Reilly, Nielsen and just about every other company you can name.)

And I'm sure I've forgotten a few ugly events too. I just don't have the stomach right now to read through this list of the major magazine-industry events of 2009.

And it's not like the tough times are over. Just last week we saw more shutdowns and a the-end-is-near memo from RBI's chief executive as well as more closures from Penton.

Follow the money

In 2009, everything that could go wrong, did.

And that's because, as I predicted, "the dominant business models of both the past and present" have failed.
Consider this:

I began the post with my predictions for 2009 by referring to a study by Outsell that forecast a 4.5% drop in print advertising in 2009. But halfway through the year, the drop in B2B print ads was already more than six times that level!

Online advertising rates -- already low -- also plummeted.

Traditional publishers, who had hoped that online ads could save them, found their optimism was misplaced. The newer, Web-only publishers found that low-cost operations with narrow margins had little room to maneuver when things got ugly.

Whether it was controlled-circulation print, SEO-driven long-tail sites or content-aggregation plays, we saw last year that B2B's center (free, ad-supported content) did not hold.

Retreat and delusions

So what's next?

I expect more closures, more layoffs, more trouble.

For example, it seems clear that RBI's parent company has no intention of staying in the business -- they'll close anything they can't sell. RBI will be gone by mid-year.

Nielsen seems to be taking a similar approach -- rushing to the exits by killing whatever brands they can't unload.

The simple truth is that for dozens of brands in B2B there's no way out. It makes more sense to walk away and take the write-off. So that's what companies will do.

I'm also expecting B2B will soon see an influx of the content mills that have caused so much trouble in B2C. That's going to cause havoc among content aggregators as well as original-content brands that have invested heavily in long-tail strategies.

The blind leading the blind

I'm also expecting a tremendous increase in the level of delusional thinking among B2B executives.

Watch for the same folks who forecast revenue surges in 2008 and a bounce-back in advertising in 2009 to predict that the end of the recession means ad rates will return to 2007 levels.

Watch too for executives and journalists to argue that the free, but generally poor quality content that is pervasive in B2B is suddenly worth paying for. (Note: if you're one of the folks who thinks he can salvage his brand by putting it behind a paywall, you may want to read Outsell's latest report on the challenges of the paid-content market.)

Change is good

My predictions last year were not meant to imply that B2B journalism itself was in any danger of disappearing. I was expecting change and shakeouts. And that's what we got.

I expect more of the same in 2010.

I also predicted that B2B journalism would soon be dominated by five types of companies (content marketing, data and tech, family-owned and other small firms, price-benchmark companies and entrepreneurs' networks.) A quick look around the industry today suggests that I was right about all of those except for the last.

At the same time, it would be misleading to suggest that the shift from the powerhouses of old is complete.

For example, content marketing had an extraordinary year in 2009. A year ago it was safe to assume that half the people in our industry had never even heard the phrase "content marketing." But that has changed. (Anecdotally, I can name a dozen or so top-notch B2B journalists of the top of my head who moved into content marketing last year. )

But there's clearly plenty more room for content marketing to grow.

There are still hundreds of B2B advertisers who haven't begun producing their own content ... yet. And my prediction that "sophisticated corporations (would begin) to purchase established B2B journalism brands and use them as the basis of their content-marketing efforts" has not come true ... yet.

For a detailed look at what I expect in 2010, you may want to read my predictions in Folio and Junta42.

But in summary, let me say this: the old days are over. We're in the midst of a fundamental shift in how people consume information and how the cost of producing that information can be covered.

There's no going back.

Ever.

Just like in 2009, there will be people who prosper amid the difficulties. And, just like in 2009, there will be people who suffer through no fault of their own.

Your task -- whether you're an editor, a salesperson, a publisher, marketer, c-suite executive, designer, j-student, etc -- is to position yourself where prosperity is possible and suffering is minimized.

In upcoming posts I'll write about the few bright spots I see in B2B as well as outline some of the moves that B2B companies and journalists should make in 2010 so that prosperity, not pain, dominates.

In the meantime, let me say "good luck."

I get the feeling we're all going to need it.

Is the revolution over?

I've written a few times this summer about my growing sense of Web 2.0 ennui -- this feeling I have that as B2B publishing bounces back from the recession, things just aren't as interesting as they were a year or so ago.
And I'm beginning to get a sense of why:
The revolution is ending.

For a decade or so now the world of journalism has been one of ceaseless change and challenge. Consider, if you will, just some of the major technologies and practices we've adopted: external links, blogging platforms, mobile delivery, slideshows, podcasting, database reporting, RSS, email newsletters, Webcasts, Twitter, Facebook, search-engine optimization, etc.
Think, too, of the cultural changes we've made in our working lives as journalists: comments on articles, Creative Commons licenses, open-source software systems, user-generated content, revenue-sharing compensation plans, aggregated content, standalone journalists, etc.
It's been a madcap series of never-ending developments. It's been glorious and exciting.
But I think it may be over.

Be honest. What was the last new development in journalism/publishing that you were truly excited about?
Twitter? Sure. It's wonderful. But it's hardly new. It launched in 2006! And it caught fire in 2007.
The iPhone? Yea. I love mine too. But it's already more than two years old.

I got an email the other day from an editorial director for a mid-sized B2B company. He told me that he'd recently discovered that his team was beginning to forget some of the basic skills of online journalism they'd been taught in the past few years.
But that wasn't such awful news, he suggested.
He'd found that the pace of new developments had slowed to such a degree that he had more time to focus on reviewing the basics.

Old Revolutionaries
In the past few weeks, two of the companies that helped revolutionize our world launched media products that simply bored me to tears.
Google debuted its Fast Flip -- a scrollable version of magazines that looks no different than the half-dozen or so products in the digital-magazine world.
Microsoft took a stab at saving the newspaper industry with a new aggregation tool. But the only interesting thing about it was the confusion over whether Microsoft lifted the idea from TweetDeck or from Sobees.
And if there is one thing that is certain about these "new" products, it is this: we won't have to spend any time teaching folks in the newsroom how to use them. They just aren't significant.

If the revolution is over, we shouldn't be surprised.
There's probably no such thing as ongoing change. Things advance at an extraordinary pace ... and then they reach a sort of stasis. We go from massive change to incremental change. We go from revolution to improvement.

This may be the very nature of human technological advancement.
We lived with propeller planes for decades. Then we developed jet engines and the world was suddenly new.
Then it wasn't.
The jets grew bigger and faster. But they were still jets.
Consider this: I am 50-years old, a child of what was once called "the Jet Age." But there's clearly nothing revolutionary left in airplane travel. The Jet Age just drags on and on and on ... seemingly stripped of its ability to inspire.

If I'm right and the media revolution has ended, I'll say now that I was thrilled to be a part of it.
And in the post-revolutionary period -- we could call it "the Web Age," if you like -- I'll continue doing what I do, practicing this profession to the best of my ability.
But I will look sadly at the newcomers to our industry -- just as I look sadly at the thousands of impatient folks I see each week at the airport -- and I will think the same thing:
Can't you see how cool this is?

People, Prophets and Publishing

Twice last week I learned about developments that sent me into frantic, obsessive pondering about the future of B2B media.
Odds are you saw those same stories. Odds are you too have contemplated their significance.

Both of these developments are about the technology of how news makes it way to us. And these particular stories made their way to me through other people using technology -- just as is often the case these days. Technology flagged the news. A person then used technology to notify me directly. And I used technology to discuss what I'd heard.

But somehow the experience left me feeling disconnected from both people and technology.

Allow me to explain.

The pull of search
Early one morning last week a friend sent an Instant Message to say that he'd received a news alert that Microsoft and Yahoo had reached a deal to combine their search assets. The core of the news was that Microsoft's search function, called Bing, would now power Yahoo search.
Instantly I started wondering what, if any, effect this would have on how B2B editors optimize their content for search.
Most of us now create content that works with the Google algorithm. We've learned to post meta data that pleases the Google gods. And Google has rewarded us. When people search for news and information in our space, Google sends those people to us.
But most of us have paid considerably less attention to the needs of Yahoo and Microsoft. Those search engines didn't merit the same level of devotion we gave to Google.
But something was changing.
So, I wondered: will we need to do anything different to please Bing?

In recent years, I'd have sought the answer to such a question by searching for an answer. I'd have typed "SEO for Bing" into the Google search box and started reading.
But this time I went instead to Twitter and asked people for help by typing "Looking for the definitive article on article-level SEO for Bing. Anyone got a recommendation?"
(If you're curious, the most interesting article anyone sent was this one. The best new-to-me site anyone told me about was this one.)

The push of context
The next day I came across another interesting tidbit. Scrolling through Twitter I found that B2B leader Rory Brown had retweeted something by publishing-platform executive Andrew Davies about how the New York Times was now delivering content based on a reader's LinkedIn profile.
So I logged into LinkedIn and then visited NYTimes to check it out.
The result was disappointing. The system seemed to think I worked in technology, rather than publishing or media. So I shared the news and my reaction with folks on Twitter: "LinkedIn and NYTimes think I work in tech: RT @rorybrown RT @andjdavies NYT using LinkedIn profile data to target news - http://bit.ly/NynAY."

But as much as the execution of the Times/LinkedIn deal fell short, the concept was intriguing.
And within minutes I was chatting online about what B2B publishers might learn from it.

People, who need people, are the luckiest people, in the World Wide Web
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I'm growing bored with Twitter and the rest of the newest media even as I grow more dependent upon them.
The way that I heard about, and then talked about, the Bing and NYTimes/LinkedIn news is just the latest example of the conflict I'm feeling -- the technology that dominates my information consumption/distribution is both wondrous and unsatisfying.
Search functions find information for me.
Contextual engines find me for information.
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging find people for me to talk to about subjects that matter to me.
Things are faster. News is more relevant; data is more useful.
Everything about how I consume and process information in my business life is better than it was years ago.
Yet, in the end, I feel unconnected and shortchanged.

Alone at the drive-in movie
My brother David is an actor. His latest role is as "Miller" in the sci-fi thriller "The Surrogates," staring Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames. The movie is set in a future where everyone stays at home, logs on, and then lives life through surrogate robots.
David's character is the henchman and follower of a character called "the Prophet," who wants people to abandon the surrogates and return to the real world. In one scene David punches Bruce Willis, who represents the status quo.

I'm not saying I want to punch anyone.
If anything, I want to punch things up.
I'm not saying I want to go backward. I'm not calling for less of what we are now and more of what we once were.
I'm hoping for -- longing for -- the next stage.
But there's a small voice in my head that warns that the next stage will disappoint me as well. It's a voice that suggests I've become less of the real me in my business life than I ever was before.
It's a voice that says I've become a surrogate me trading information with a surrogate you.
I'm not sure what to do about this. But I find it very unlikely I'll find a technological solution to my Web 2.0 ennui.
(Note: I recognize there's something absurd about feeling bored with Web 2.0 and then blogging about it. Even sillier is the fact that I'm about to tweet about this blog post.)

Congratulations to the TABPI winners!

TABPI, the international association for B2B journalists, has announced its pick for the best magazines and Websites in the industry.
Congratulations to all the winners!

As of this morning, the list of winners is available only on TABPI's Facebook page. But later today the list will appear on TABPI's Web site.

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I'm most interested in the Web site awards. And longtime readers won't be surprised to see that the list of winners contains a number of my longtime favorites. UK-based Accountancy Age took the gold this year (the Incisive-owned product won the bronze last year.) Computerworld picked up the silver and Modern Healthcare won the bronze awards. In the new category for Best Online Feature Computerworld took first place, PC World took second, and Therapy Times took the third-place prize. (Disclosure: I've consulted on online-journalism issues with IDG, the owner of both Computerworld and PC World.)

(Update [11:26 am, ET]) : The complete list of winners is now available on TABPI's site.)

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, web-first publishing

Five important questions for B2B media: Part Five

(This is the final post in a five-part series in which I pose questions about the state of B2B media.
You can find the earlier installments here, here, here and here.)

I spoke at the Folio:Show a few weeks ago, sharing my thoughts on hiring in this new and challenging era of multimedia reporting, programmer/journalists and social media. I ended my remarks by talking briefly about a young New Zealander named Glenn Wolsey.
I'm a fan of Glenn's work. So I like to use him as an example of what the new style of journalist can look like. He has the subject matter expertise that B2B media requires (Glenn is an expert on Apple products.) He's a talented writer. He looks great in video. And he's a gifted photographer. He publishes a blog, and is comfortable with conversational media. And as a resident of New Zealand who writes about a U.S.-based company, he symbolizes all that is important and powerful about the global economy and a distributed workforce.
But the real reason I love to use Glenn as an example is the shock value.
Because he's only 15-years old.
Check out Glenn's site here. Or read an interview with him here.

A little more than two years ago I wrote for the first time about what I sensed was becoming a phenomenon -- standalone journalism (or entrepreneurial journalism.) The Web had created a situation in which anyone could be a publisher. There were no start-up costs. There was no need to cajole investment bankers into lending you money. You didn't need a boss, a circulation department, ad salesmen, printers, tech staff or a receptionist.
You could publish all by yourself. And you could do it because you thought you could make money. Or you could do it because you enjoyed it. Even 15-year olds like Glenn -- who would never have been able to grab the attention of traditional publishers -- were now free to compete in the realm of ideas, rather than the worlds of investment capital or traditional employment.
Two years ago this month, as more bloggers and entrepreneurs rushed into our markets, I told readers that "it's time to ask yourself, if you're in this game for the money, how can you compete against someone who is in it for love? "

Certainly the rise of "user-generated content" has provided part of the answer. Publishers have found that they can co-opt the passion of this new generation of bloggers and standalone journalists by bringing them in-house while allowing their style of conversational journalism to flourish. Every smart B2B publisher has embraced the idea that readers are also writers, that the audience can also be reporters, that everyone can contribute.

But consider, if you will, some of the other challenges that have arisen.
Google has replaced the home page. People don't "surf" for information the way they did just a few years ago. Now they search for it. And woe is the B2B publisher who is so delusional that he thinks readers continue to bookmark his site and check it constantly for updates.
Content aggregators have become delivery systems. For everyone who subscribes to one of our newsletters, there's someone else who subscribes to a more neutral provider like SmartBrief or FierceMarkets.
Once we could argue that the work we produced had a professionalism that others could not duplicate. But that's no longer true. Content marketers have learned our methods, and they are producing compelling content that rivals anything done by traditional publishers.

There are, of course, ways to respond to these challenges. Search-engine optimization is a must-have skill for journalists and publishers. The way to make your email newsletter more valuable is by offering more value within it -- linking to information wherever it comes from, including competitors. B2B companies can expand their custom-publishing operations and embrace the it-doesn't-read-like-an-ad mentality of the smartest content marketers.

But the challenges keep coming. And I have my doubts that most B2B companies are prepared for whatever comes next.

Half-full Glass
If you're a longtime reader of this blog, or if you've ever seen me speak at an industry event, then you know I am both thrilled and optimistic about the changes in media. I'm not one of those people who long for the old days. I love bloggers and multimedia reporters and programmer/journalists. I love feedback functions and Website functionality. I love YouTube and Facebook and Twitter. I love RSS and CSS and every other acronym in the new-media world.
But I also recognize that we have lost things.
Until recently, most of us were among the sole voices that people recognized and trusted in the industries we cover. Until recently, our publications were among the few ways that marketers could reach their targets. We worked less than we do now, but it was easier to make money.

In business, people sometimes talk about points of difference and unique selling propositions. But in B2B media, it's getting harder and harder for people to point to what makes their products unique. Everyone is a publisher now and Google is everyone's circulation department.

Which brings us to today's question:
What can you, your staff and your publication bring to the table that no one else can? (I've published my answer to that question here.)

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, entrepreneurial journalism, standalone journalism

Is turnaround fair play?

Two recent incidents in journalism have left me feeling both disturbed and pleased. In both cases, reporters acting in a less-than-professional manner found themselves on the receiving end of their own offensive practices.

First is the public outing and hazing of the NBC Dateline reporter who apparently declined press credentials at Defcon 15. Check out the video here. What you'll see is a bunch of Defcon attendees acting like Dateline reporters, chasing after her and saying "We only want to ask you a few questions" as she flees to her car. It is both scary and funny.

Second is what may be Facebook's first major journalism scandal. Slate recently published a story saying that Rudy Giuliani's daughter had joined a Facebook group of Barack Obama supporters. That story received enormous coverage in the rest of the press. But what many mainstream reporters have missed (or, perhaps, ignored) is that Guliani's daughter is a minor and that her Facebook page wasn't open to the public. She is not a public figure, and she did nothing to put herself into the spotlight. Rather, Slate simply violated the privacy of a minor. It's also worth noting that the reporter violated the terms of her own Facebook account by lifting material from Ms. Giuliani's page, and that the story and photo that Slate ran are misleading. Now the reporter's personal life -- including her email address and phone number -- are being spread around the Web by angry bloggers. Check out the details here.

As a journalist, I cannot help but be disturbed by the video image of an angry crowd following a reporter. Nor can I help but be disturbed by the implication that the way to respond to poor reporting is to harass the reporter.
But as a news consumer, I also cannot help but find these incidents in which reporters became the victims of their own worst practices -- entrapment, chasing people down the street with cameras, invading privacy, etc. -- as right and just.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism ethics

Old and hip

I awoke this morning, feeling sore and cranky. And I realized that today is Aug. 7, which means it was 18 years ago today I was discharged from the Army.
The idea that so much time has passed since I was a young, highly motivated knucklehead with an M-16, always depresses me. It makes me feel old. And this morning I sat on the couch drinking coffee and feeling sorry for myself, when my wife, who is 15 years younger than I, asked me a question that changed my mood:
"You ever hear of a thing called Facebook?"

She has no interest in my work. And she doesn't read this blog. So of course she had never seen any of the things I've written about Facebook. But that's fine. Because today when she asked that question, I felt, for just a minute, younger and more hip than she.
And lord knows I needed that today.

Speaking of young and hip, if you're reading this post on my blog (rather than through an RSS feed), you'll see a new link on the right that says "Follow me on Twitter."
Twitter is a "micro-blogging" platform. And in my never-ending quest to remain digitally connected, I started using it last week.
I have quickly become addicted. I'm sure I'll write more about Twitter (as well as rival Pownce, which I just started using) soon.

And next August, when I'm yet another year further away from the young soldier I once was, I'm hoping that my wife will turn to me and ask "You ever hear of a thing called Twitter?"

To read the news story that brought Facebook to my wife's attention today, click here.
To read more about micro-blogging, click here.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media

Can I have a hug?

Late last year I ended a brief experiment in running a blog called Wind Farm News, which covered the wind-power industry. The site is long gone, but bits of it have been preserved by the Way-Back Machine.

I found myself thinking about that site today when I read that Treehugger had been sold for somewhere between $10 million and $15 million.

Within days of launching Wind Farm News, I found myself obsessed with Hugg.com, the Digg-style "source for user-generated green news" owned by TreeHugger. On Hugg, users share stories they like with the Hugg community. And then other users can vote their approval by "hugging" that story. The most-hugged stories move to the top of the home page.

On those rare days when one of my pieces was posted to Hugg, I felt tremendous satisfaction. And when other users "hugged" my story, it was a remarkably affirming experience. Never before in my journalistic career had I got such a kick out of reader feedback. It felt light years away from the letters to the editor of my newspaper days. And getting hugged felt even better than the links and comments that mark feedback here on this blog. A "Hugg" felt like a "hug."
And I really liked getting them. More importantly, I really liked giving them to stories I enjoyed.

The sale of TreeHugger comes just two weeks after MediaBistro was sold for $23 million. And I suspect that much of the media world -- even the new-media world -- will be perplexed by the value attached to TreeHugger in the same way they were perplexed by the price of MediaBistro.
But I don't share the cynics' disbelief.
I think that TreeHugger and MediaBistro were both worthwhile investments and for the same reason -- community.

When I published Wind Farm News, I felt that I belonged to Hugg. And I engaged with content on that site in a way that I had never engaged before or since -- by sharing my affection for an article by "hugging" it. Hugg was my community in a way that LinkedIn never has been but that Facebook may be becoming -- the place where I am online.
I had similar experiences with MediaBistro, although not as intense. I've taken a course at its New York office. I've turned down an opportunity to teach there. I use the site on a regular basis to look for freelancers. In other words, MediaBistro is one of the places that I "network."

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I value such communities in a way that I cannot value the staples of the B2B world -- print products and trade shows.
Print is something that I read. A trade show is someplace I go. But a community is a place where I belong.
And I suspect that in 2007 when media bankers and the like try to determine the value of a B2B company, they will decide -- correctly -- to give higher multiples to companies that offer a place to be, rather than just a magazine to read or a conference to attend.

Rex also thinks the MediaBistro sale is a "big deal" for B2B.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media

Lessons from the new metrics

My recent post on the new metrics from Nielsen prompted a few emails from readers. Folks asked what, if any, changes in content might be prompted by the new measurements. And one reader in particular asked if I thought "trades should continue to invest time and resources to delivering email newsletters?"

I'm not a fan of email newsletters. As I've mentioned before, I think RSS is a superior product for users. So I think it's inevitable that as consumers become more familiar with news readers and related products, newsletters will come to be seen as too annoying to deal with.
It's also worth noting that e-mail newsletters are, as strange as it may seem, already quite old-fashioned. Young people don't like e-mail. And as just as print has begun to seem quaint even to folks in their 30s and 40s, e-mail looks like semaphore signals to the Facebook generation.

Yet as much as I have grown to dislike email newsletters, I think it's way too early for publishers to walk away from them. There's still money to be made there. In some cases there is a lot of money to made there. Advertisers like them. They are a fairly easy and inexpensive way to launch a new product. And most importantly, they are tied to a metric -- a list of email subscribers -- that won't be hurt by Nielsen's change.
So I advise publishers to:
a) begin offering RSS now, and
b) make improvements to your existing email newsletters, which are often the least professional product in any B2B line-up.
For more on this subject, take a look at this post from early last year.

There is, however, one more thing worth thinking about here.
Nielsen's new measurements -- which emphasize time, rather than page views -- decrease the value of products that don't have original content. In other words, a page (or e-mail newsletter) of outside links is worth less than a page of compelling and time-consuming content. In this model, a five-minute video clip is worth more than five clickable headlines to someone else's content. Content aggregation, which has been the easiest way for publishers to make money online, may not be so easy anymore.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media

BusinessWeek on widgets

I've mentioned before that I've not had much luck getting B2B types interested in widgets, Facebook and the open API phenomenon.

But this weekend I stumbled upon something that may make it easier for me to get folks to share my excitement. BusinessWeek has published a lengthy piece on the rapid changes that have led "some technologists to conclude that these humble bits of code--or applications, as widgets are also known--could turbocharge a third phase in the Internet's development."

For more on the subject, check out Barry Graubart's piece on "Monetizing Facebook Aps."

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, widgets

Widget windfall

It was almost exactly one month ago when I posted something to this blog about Facebook's decision to open its API to any developer who wanted to build a widget for the site. I said then that Facebook's decision "is going to prompt a shift in the world of online content -- similar to the shifts that came with the rise of content aggregation and search. Once again the way that early adopters find, consume and share content is going to change. More importantly, an entire new class of entrepreneurs will emerge to build content companies on top of Facebook's API."

Now Google has thrown its support behind the widget phenomenon. Google has created a venture fund that will offer financial support to developers who build widgets for Google's Gadget API. (Thanks to Matthew for pointing me to the news.)

So if it wasn't clear before, it should be clear now -- something significant is happening.
And if I haven't been clear before, let me say it again -- B2B journalism isn't ready.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, widgets

More on widgets

My recent post about widgets, Facebook, the future and B2B journalism generated a few emails. And two readers pointed out that there are now at least two widgets in our industry.

First, if you're attending the Circulation Management show in New York this week, you can check out the debut of a widget from NXTBook. I'm afraid I don't have any details yet. But I'm eager to see it.

Second, Penton has a widget of its SearchFinace tool, built with Yahoo's widget technology. Take a look at the lower left-hand corner of SearchFinance.com for info on how to download it.

For more on widgets, take a look at the Sexy Widget blog. (It's worth noting that Sexy Widget's Lawrence Coburn is considerably less pleased by Facebook's recent move than I am.)

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, widgets

The next big thing isn't here, but it may be very, very close

I've had no luck getting journalists and B2B publishers interested in creating widgets.
I've tried. But I've failed.
I can think of at least a half dozen conversations and emails on the subject in the past few months. But no one I've talked to has reacted with anything even close to enthusiasm. It's my fault, I'm sure. I didn't create a sense of urgency about widgets ... because although I've viewed them as exceedingly cool things, I haven't thought of them as crucial to a B2B publication.
But that may have just changed.
In a related vein, in the past few years dozens of journalists and publishing executives have asked me what I think will be the next big thing in publishing. And although I've used that question to launch conversations on dozens of topics, I haven't given a definitive answer ... because I didn't think I knew the answer.
But that too may have just changed.

If you've heard the news about Facebook, you may know what I'm about to say. If you haven't heard the news, let me explain. Facebook, the social-networking site that dominates the online lives of millions of college and high-school students, has said it will allow outside companies to embed applications and widgets in its pages. Facebook is opening its API to the world. What that means is that anyone is now free to build entire online businesses -- including content businesses -- on top of Facebook.
Scott Karp says the move gives Facebook the opportunity to become the next Google.

The first widgets are coming from predictable sources such as Amazon and Digg. But the possibilities are endless.
Certainly some of the smartest folks in the media business have jumped on the Facebook train. Take a look at this post by Rob Curley of the Washington Post, which "secretly" developed three applications for Facebook (Note: Rob emphasizes that Facebook is doing more than accepting widgets, but is instead looking for applications that are "real social-networking tools." And he even makes a point of saying that a simple widget of headline feeds would be about the dumbest thing anyone could try to get the Facebook community excited about.)

So am I saying that Facebook is the next big thing? For B2B? Not really.
Look -- Facebook has clearly become the most exciting company in the online world. And unlike a year ago when I first tried to sign up for a Facebook account, now even gray-haired B2B types like me are free to join. But I don't see Facebook becoming a major factor in the working lives of people in their 30s and older.
Am I saying that widgets are the next big thing? in B2B? Not really, although it's clear that many of the most exciting online products we'll see in the next few months will be widgets built for Facebook.

What I'm saying is that Facebook's decision to open its API is going to prompt a shift in the world of online content -- similar to the shifts that came with the rise of content aggregation and search. Once again the way that early adopters find, consume and share content is going to change. More importantly, an entire new class of entrepreneurs will emerge to build content companies on top of Facebook's API.
What I'm saying is that the next big thing in B2B publishing will exist because of what Facebook is doing. What I'm saying is that after new entrepreneurs figure out how to make money from content on Facebook, they'll figure out how to make money in B2B using a similar, widget-like process of embedding applications on top of someone else's business.
And the place that I think that's most likely to happen is Salesforce.com.

If you're not familiar with Salesforce, take a walk over to the desk of the guy who sells your ads. Odds are he knows it. Odds are he uses it. Ask him to explain it to you. Or just take a look here for an explanation of how Salesforce's customers can pick and choose from applications.
What you'll find is that Salesforce already is what Facebook is trying to become -- a technology platform that allows users to build a place to be on the Web. And while Facebook is about life, Salesforce is about work. Just like B2B publishing.

So consider this: Earlier this year Salesforce launched a service aimed at financial-service professionals. Merrill Lynch has already signed up 25,000 of its employees. Those employees are now using market-data streams and other applications in the Salesforce environment. But what they are not using is content, data or anything else from a traditional B2B publisher. Because as near as I can tell, none of the dozens of financial-service magazines in B2B have thought of a single application to offer them.

When I look at Facebook and Salesforce and open APIs, I'm convinced that I see the outline of the next big thing. I'm not sure exactly what form this next big thing will take. I'm not sure exactly how it will work. But I know that it is being born.
And as I have warned before, the world of B2B publishing isn't ready for it.

Click here to read how the development community views Facebook and Salesforce.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, widgets

Three job tips for students

Few things tell me less about a prospective hire than clips from a college newspaper.
Yet most of the students I meet use clips as the center of their job-searching efforts. The students, apparently at the urging of teachers, are often quite proud of their clips. And they have come to believe that the perfect clip will lead to the perfect entry-level job.

I don't want to suggest that a clip has no value. But the truth is that when a student hands me a pile of clips, it will take weeks before I so much as glance at them. And glance is the most I'll do.
And I think that most established journalists feel the same way. We know the clips have been edited --often heavily. And we know that many of the stories that students hand to us have been kicked back for rewrites numerous times.

Most importantly, a clip ties a student to the part of the industry that is least likely to hire him -- print. When a student hands a clip to a publishing executive today he's likely handing it to someone who has already laid off a slew of print-only reporters. It's an exercise in absurdity for students to market themselves as talented print journalists to executives who have laid off talented print journalists by the thousands.

So what do I -- and many others in the industry -- look for from students?
We look for people who can help us navigate the future.
We know what many students seem not to know: no young person is likely to spend his career in print alone. But we also suspect that students are already living in the future we see for the industry: a 24-hour environment of collaboration, community, multimedia and mobile, a work/life of creation and consumption that erases the lines between professionals and audience.

When I meet students I'm looking for three things. And I urge my clients and friends in the industry to look for these same three traits. I may write more about each of these in the next few days. But for now, I'll offer this brief summary of the things that can get a kid a job.

1. Youth itself: I was in a newsroom the other day where a young person, fresh from school, was talking about the weather outside. "It's 72 degrees," she said glancing at her computer, "according to my widget." And I had to laugh aloud. Because an hour earlier I had found myself in a frustrating conversation with her boss in which I tried to explain what widgets were and how they worked.
The simple truth is that youth itself has a value in today's publishing world. We need people who live online and understand what it means. I tell students not to let anyone -- particularly older journalists and teachers -- belittle their culture. I want to hire people who send text messages on a PDA, have Facebook accounts and MySpace pages and write blogs about local bands. I don't need experts in these things. I just need people I can talk to when I want to talk about new products and ideas. And I'm just so tired of explaining to people how to use de.licio.us bookmarks.

2. Self-taught: When I look at the skill set on a student's resume I'm most interested in things that are not part of the curriculum. I know how quickly things have changed in our industry. And I know how quickly they will continue to change. And time and time again I've seen journalists complain about things that they don't know how to do because no one has taught them. Then I've waived good-bye as they were laid off.
So I want new hires who have enough sense to teach themselves what they need to know. Sure, there are skills and software that I prefer to others. But when I'm meeting students I'm thrilled by someone who taught himself Dreamweaver, whereas I'm not so impressed by someone who took a course in PhotoShop.

3. Entrepreneurial: Back when I was leaving school, with my degree in hand and a ton of clips from a great journalism program, I had the good luck to interview with someone who quizzed me incessantly about my life. And he was pleased and surprised to find that a) I had helped publish a fanzine about music in New York, and b) had been paid $15 a week while a student to type up sport scores from my school and walk them over to a local paper.
Neither of those things were on my resume. But they were the reason he hired me.
Now I'm the old guy. And I look for those same indications of ambition and entrepreneurial sense in students.
That's why I tell students that the only clips I want to see are the ones they were paid for. Nothing tells me that a writer has value like that fact that someone "valued" his writing.

I'll be talking about these issues tomorrow at ABM's Digital Velocity conference. If you're going to be there, stop by and say hello.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education

Facebook loses face; We lose FYJ

Last week I met with some journalists at IDG to talk about the next generation of media consumers. I won't share the details of my presentation here; but I will say that -- quite predictably -- I urged those editors and reporters to spend some time on the social-networking sites popular with high school kids and college students.

What I didn't mention, but perhaps should have, is that most of those journalists won't be able to check out Facebook. Membership to that service is limited to students at universities, high schools and a handful of businesses. (If a middle-aged person tries, as I did, to sign up for the community related to his high school alma mater, he'll get an ego-shattering message saying he's "too old" to participate.)

Given that, most of us in the media will have to get our understanding of the new scandal at Facebook from secondary sources. So today I'll urge journalists to check out the coverage of what went wrong when Facebook seemed to violate its long-standing commitment to users' privacy.
There are stories here, here and here. (Whenever I want to learn about social networking, I turn to Danah Boyd, who may be the brightest person working in the field. But as I post this piece, Danah hasn't written anything about the new Facebook scandal. But I'll suggest you keep checking here for an update. On the other hand, whenever I want to learn about almost anything, I turn to Rex. And he has weighed in on the Facebook issue.)

To ponder a journalism-ethics question raised by Facebook and other social-networking sites, check out this earlier post.
For more on the social-networking phenomenon, take a look at this piece in Fortune about the founders of MySpace, and how missteps by rival Friendster set the pace for MySpace's success.
For a look at a new initiative from the magazine industry to attract the next generation of media consumers, check out this piece in the New York Times. (Note: my first reaction to this idea is to roll my eyes and moan out load, but maybe college kids really are eager to get pdf-like files in their email.)

And one final note: as those of us in the media have pondered the next generation, we've often turned to the voice of the Canadian reporter known as Fine Young Journalist to help us understand what was happening.
We won't be able to do that any longer.
FYJ has stopped blogging.
I would urge all of you to read his farewell post, which is full of the insights and lovely writing that I've come to expect of him.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education