The buying and selling craze in B2B

Yesterday's post about the pending sale of my former employer, Primedia Business, generated a fair amount of feedback. Much of it from old friends, comrades, enemies and a few folks I don't quite remember from my time at that company. And I'd describe much of that feedback as a sort of gleeful, vengeful fury.
I guess I was right when I wrote that there are still plenty of "folks left who are still angry" about what went wrong.
Maybe the sale of Primedia Business will let all of us put the past behind us.
Besides, as my fellow B2B blogger David Shaw points out, there are plenty of B2B conglomerates that suffer from the same problems, for the same reasons, as Primedia Business.

Primedia Business for sale

Primedia Business is for sale. That's no surprise to anyone who has watched the B2B publishing unit languish all these years under the staggering debt and staggeringly bad decisions of parent company Primedia. It's certainly no surprise to me. Back when I was vice president of online content at Primedia Business, I predicted almost every day that the unit would be sold. (But that was, perhaps, just wishful thinking. I'd spent too many boring meetings in Primedia's executive dining room, wasted too many days trying to track down high-ranking bigwigs with drinking problems who frequented the bars near corporate headquarters, and listened to far too many imbeciles tell me their theories on journalism.)
So who will buy the B2B giant once known as Intertec?
The obvious choice is Ascend Media, run by former Primedia executive Cam Bishop. That would be the outcome most likely to have folks jumping for joy back in Kansas. Ascend is right down the street from Primedia Business's offices in Johnson County. And there are plenty of Intertec folks left who are still angry over the disrespect they were given by the pretentious New Yorkers who bought the company. I doubt there's a soul in Primedia Business who thought it was good idea when Primedia CEO Tom Rogers decided to let Tim Andrews, and not Cam Bishop, run the B2B unit.
Another former Primedia executive who may buy Primedia Business is Charles McCurdy. But I'll put my money on Cam.
Nonetheless, rather than think about what is next, today is probably a day to contemplate what has...at long last...happened. Now that Tom and Tim are long gone...and much of Intertec has been sold off or closed down...it seems Primedia has decided it's time to end the whole bloody mess.

Billboard gets a facelift

VNU's Billboard magazine is one of those strange breeds in the magazine world. It's clearly a B2B property. But it also has a substantial B2C slant. And Billboard, like similar B2BandC publications such as The Hollywood Reporter or Trains, is available on many newsstands.
Perhaps that's why changes at Billboard are deemed important enough by the folks at the New York Times to merit a feature story.
But don't look to the Times to mention what I find to be the most interesting development at Billboard -- the launch of a B2BandC blog about iPods.

Folio moves to controlled circulation

I just got an email from Red7Media, the folks who recently bought Folio magazine from Primedia. And Red7Media says it is shifting Folio to a controlled-circulation model. I followed the link in the email and renewed my subscription to this bible of the magazine world. Check your email in-box and do the same. If you believe the "Act Now!" tone of the email, then time is short. "...we plan to hold the rate base to its current approximate 9,000 subscribers, we are encouraging our present subscribers to sign up immediately," Red7Media says. "Once the 9,000 is achieved, additional requests will be wait listed."

'Stand alone' journalism and the trade press

There's a fascinating discussion on Jay Rosen's Pressthink blog about Chris Nolan's concept of "stand alone" journalism. In brief, Nolan predicts a rise of high-quality journalists who work without the support of traditional publishers. Blogging software, Nolan says, gives journalists their own means of production, freeing them from the need to sell work through a middleman. That has the potential to create a new subset of the press -- journalists without employers.
I agree that people like Andrew Sullivan can make a living selling general interest news to a general population. But I'll predict here that these new "stand alone" journalists are most likely to come from the specialized business press, where customers will pay high rates for quality information. Trade journalism is already filled with folks such as Ralph Wilson and Richard Brock, who make money publishing specialized B2B newsletters.
I've said here before that traditional B2B publishers need to be aware of the competitive threat posed by their readers. Thousands of people in the B2B audience already have the tools to launch a competitive product -- expertise, sources and publishing software.
Traditional B2B publishers also face a "stand alone" threat from their own editors and reporters. The Web and blogging makes it much easier for someone to strike out on his own, using the sources he met while working for a trade publication, and cashing in on his own reputation as an expert. If you're a trade publisher, look across your newsroom now at that guy. You know the one. He's been there for 20 years. Before that he worked for your competitor. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. He speaks at trade shows, gets all the story tips. He has become, in a very real sense, synonymous with your brand. And ask yourself: what would happen if he left to start his own business?

Another buy by another former Primedia exec

Sometimes it seems that the entire magazine-publishing industry is being bought up by the former executives of my former employer. Now Apprise Media, run by ex-president of Primedia Charles McCurdy, has agreed to purchase Canon Communications. The acquisition of the publisher of such medical-manufacturing titles as "Plastics Machinery and Auxiliaries" is Apprise's first move into B2B.
I send my "good luck" wishes to McCurdy, the guys at Red 7 Media, the team at Ascend Communications and all the rest of the Primedia exiles.
Primedia, on the other hand, is undergoing a "major philosophical shift" and turning its back on acquisitions.