Boomers Hip to Web Technology. Online for Needs, Not Entertainment
http://www.centerformediaresearch.com/cfmr_brief.cfm?fnl=070404
According to a new study, by ThirdAge Inc. and JWT BOOM, with over 1,210 adults 40+ years of age, over 72% of ThirdAgers access the Internet from Broadband in their homes, which is significantly more than the national average across all age groups. And, over 82% of all respondents are researching or reading information Online on health and wellness for themselves and for their families.
Sharon Whiteley, CEO of ThirdAge, said "ThirdAgers (baby boomers and mid-lifers generally in their early 40's through mid 60's) are regularly stereotyped as being technophobes and slow to jump on the technology bandwagon. However... not only are they online, they're surprisingly a formidable presence on the Internet."
According to the survey, ThirdAgers spend time on the Internet are to:
Seek out information (92%)
Stay in touch with friends and family (95%)
Shop online (73%)
Browse the Web (95%)
Read articles (91%)
Research products before purchasing offline (86%)
What they're not doing is watching videos, writing blogs, playing games or downloading music, notes the report.
The report includes data that shows that
Close to 108 million people are over the age of 45, more than 40 percent of the population, with the majority of the buying power in the United States
They account for 70 percent of the U.S. net worth, controlling $9 trillion
In the next 15 years, the 50-64 age popular will grow by 50 percent and the 65-plus population will grow 32 percent
Traditionally coveted 18-40 Gen-X and Gen-Y populations will grow only 3 percent combined
Whiteley says "... many marketers... (are not) building a trusted relationship with people who are over 40... These generations have grown up in the information age; they will seek facts, data and peer input..."
Based on survey findings, over 96% share information and details about new discoveries with their family, 84% with their children, 83% with their spouses and 71% among their co-workers making this cohort one of the most active groups in the viral marketplace.
Research results also point to the fact that marketers would do well to understand the value of an integrated media plans when marketing to ThirdAgers as 92 % visit an online Web site after they've read about it in a print article. 89 % typically visit a Web site after seeing a print ad, and 83 % visit a site after seeing a television ad.
Additional topline findings about this market segment:
82% are using a desktop computer to connect online
17% are using laptops
73% are using Broadband to access the Internet from home
82% are using the Internet to seek information around health & wellness
69% get health & wellness information from doctors and medical professionals
79% would respond to promotional e-mails about products and services
92% have read about a Web site in a print article and then visited online
89% have seen a print ad and later visited the online site
83% have seen a Web site advertised on television and later visited it online
65% will visit a Web site address after hearing it on a radio
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Ready or not, digital TV's coming
Ready or not, digital TV's coming
LOS ANGELES, April 2 (UPI) -- The countdown toward the U.S. conversion to digital television is ticking downward, slowly but inexorably.
Statistics show about 20 percent of U.S. households use rabbit ears or rooftop antennae rather than pay for cable or satellite programming. But because federal law mandates the switch from analog to digital in 2009, most of those sets will go dark unless a converter box costing about $50, less any government subsidy, is installed.
A recent poll found 61 percent of people who rely on broadcast TV aren't aware of the coming changes, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. About half of those households have incomes under $30,000, and blacks and Hispanics comprise a higher percentage than whites, according to the survey.
Alex Nogales of the Los Angeles-based National Hispanic Media Coalition told a congressional panel last week: "Am I concerned that our community is going to be left out? Of course."
Nancy Zirkin of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights worries those needing the converter-box coupons will be the last know.
"Like some science-fiction nightmare, the news they watch, the programs that actually keep them company and let them know what is happening in the world, could -- poof -- disappear," she said.
LOS ANGELES, April 2 (UPI) -- The countdown toward the U.S. conversion to digital television is ticking downward, slowly but inexorably.
Statistics show about 20 percent of U.S. households use rabbit ears or rooftop antennae rather than pay for cable or satellite programming. But because federal law mandates the switch from analog to digital in 2009, most of those sets will go dark unless a converter box costing about $50, less any government subsidy, is installed.
A recent poll found 61 percent of people who rely on broadcast TV aren't aware of the coming changes, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. About half of those households have incomes under $30,000, and blacks and Hispanics comprise a higher percentage than whites, according to the survey.
Alex Nogales of the Los Angeles-based National Hispanic Media Coalition told a congressional panel last week: "Am I concerned that our community is going to be left out? Of course."
Nancy Zirkin of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights worries those needing the converter-box coupons will be the last know.
"Like some science-fiction nightmare, the news they watch, the programs that actually keep them company and let them know what is happening in the world, could -- poof -- disappear," she said.
Future Journalists: No Web Skills, No Job
ABM Digital Velocity Panel to
Future Journalists: No Web Skills, No Job
Monday, April 02, 2007
By Marrecca Fiore
http://www.foliomag.com/viewmedia.asp?prmMID=7544
Consultant and publishing industry blogger, Paul Conley spends one month a year working with students embarking, or at least trying to embark, on their own journalism careers.
Conley, speaking last week at American Business Media’s Digital Velocity conference, said his third job has made him come to realize that many future journalists are still Web-challenged. These future employees are walking around with hard copies of their clips (as opposed to having them in an electronic format) and believe that they are going carve out successful print-only careers.
But even more disturbing, said Conley, is the willingness of employers to take those hard-copy clips. “We need to stop looking for people who were like us when we were first looking for jobs,” said Conley, speaking during a panel titled “Empowering Your Workforce for the New Digital Landscape. “We need to look for a very different type of entry-level person. Someone who understand the software culture in which we’re working.”
Conley said employers should be looking to hire people who are willing and eager to learn new skills, as well as people who already have strong computer-related backgrounds with image-scanning, video, blogging, podcasting and even Web-related entrepreneurial skills.
Conley said he was very impressed with a college student he met that had started a blog to let other students know about campus news and events. What impressed Conley was not the blog, but the fact that the student knew enough to sign the blog up for Google AdSense and was earning $40 a year from the program. "It's not the $40," Conley said. "It's the fact that he's ambitious and entrepreneurial and learned to do this on his own."
Jason Brightman, Web director of Harris Publications, publisher of 70 titles including hip hop magazine XXL, said publishers must first be willing to undergo a cultural shift before transforming old media companies into new media companies. “When we transitioned our 70 titles from magazines to the Web, we had to get our employees to realize that we were still a publishing company," he said. "It’s just that we were thinking about publishing in a different way.”
Still, Harris initially had two problems, said Brightman. One, it needed to find new talent with Web expertise. And two, it needed to train its existing employees to publish on the Web. “We all know that online publishing is different than publishing in print,” he said. “It does require different writing skills. For XXL, there were already a lot of established hip hop blogs out there so we invited them to blog on our site. We got their content and their built-in audience. And they got to associate their blogs with our brand. And we were big enough that, at first, (the bloggers) would do it for free.”
For its existing employees, Harris appealed to their egos by telling them that Web journalism would expand their reach and expand the number of times their bylines would appear on search engines like Google. “We also needed to get them to look at it not as though we were replacing their jobs and the magazines, but that we were expanding our products to improve the brand,” he added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
Future Journalists: No Web Skills, No Job
Monday, April 02, 2007
By Marrecca Fiore
http://www.foliomag.com/viewmedia.asp?prmMID=7544
Consultant and publishing industry blogger, Paul Conley spends one month a year working with students embarking, or at least trying to embark, on their own journalism careers.
Conley, speaking last week at American Business Media’s Digital Velocity conference, said his third job has made him come to realize that many future journalists are still Web-challenged. These future employees are walking around with hard copies of their clips (as opposed to having them in an electronic format) and believe that they are going carve out successful print-only careers.
But even more disturbing, said Conley, is the willingness of employers to take those hard-copy clips. “We need to stop looking for people who were like us when we were first looking for jobs,” said Conley, speaking during a panel titled “Empowering Your Workforce for the New Digital Landscape. “We need to look for a very different type of entry-level person. Someone who understand the software culture in which we’re working.”
Conley said employers should be looking to hire people who are willing and eager to learn new skills, as well as people who already have strong computer-related backgrounds with image-scanning, video, blogging, podcasting and even Web-related entrepreneurial skills.
Conley said he was very impressed with a college student he met that had started a blog to let other students know about campus news and events. What impressed Conley was not the blog, but the fact that the student knew enough to sign the blog up for Google AdSense and was earning $40 a year from the program. "It's not the $40," Conley said. "It's the fact that he's ambitious and entrepreneurial and learned to do this on his own."
Jason Brightman, Web director of Harris Publications, publisher of 70 titles including hip hop magazine XXL, said publishers must first be willing to undergo a cultural shift before transforming old media companies into new media companies. “When we transitioned our 70 titles from magazines to the Web, we had to get our employees to realize that we were still a publishing company," he said. "It’s just that we were thinking about publishing in a different way.”
Still, Harris initially had two problems, said Brightman. One, it needed to find new talent with Web expertise. And two, it needed to train its existing employees to publish on the Web. “We all know that online publishing is different than publishing in print,” he said. “It does require different writing skills. For XXL, there were already a lot of established hip hop blogs out there so we invited them to blog on our site. We got their content and their built-in audience. And they got to associate their blogs with our brand. And we were big enough that, at first, (the bloggers) would do it for free.”
For its existing employees, Harris appealed to their egos by telling them that Web journalism would expand their reach and expand the number of times their bylines would appear on search engines like Google. “We also needed to get them to look at it not as though we were replacing their jobs and the magazines, but that we were expanding our products to improve the brand,” he added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
Targeting: Google's Got The Key
Targeting: Google's Got The Key
by Mark Green
We swim in a sea of data. Focus groups, transactions, all sorts of surveys, Web traffic, assorted non-sale responses, TV meters, portable meters, mall intercepts, and contests - and that's just to name a few. But what matters, and what's the value? These are becoming strategic questions for many companies.
Answers lie in what metrics can be used to run your business. Management uses key business indicators that are as close as possible to the operational decisions they can control.
Imagine if your metrics guaranteed specific sales for each media unit purchased. The decision of how much to spend on that media unit becomes academic. On the flip side, with sufficient information across industry verticals, these metrics also illuminate the value of the media unit to the broadcasters.
The Google model invites prospective customers to bid for responses to keywords. Google makes dollars per response delivered, using Ad Sense algorithms to estimate how many responses it can deliver per bid to decide who wins the bid. But just because company A bids $2 per response and company B bids $1 does not mean that company A wins. If Ad Sense predicts that company B would get three times as many responses as A, then company B wins. And so does Google, by optimizing the monetary value of its search words.
Imagine the capitalization of the company that replaces Google's pay-per-click response model with a pay-per-inquiry/visit/sale response model. It's just a matter of time before someone corrals our increasingly electronic world and delivers this.
The simple solution is to collect everything in a single panel of consumers. The traditional barriers have always been the cost of specialized measurements to track different things and their consequent strains on maintaining cooperation in a representative panel. The traditional answer has been vertical specialization to manage for panel "burn-out" and measurement costs.
However, as technology evolves, these economics may change. Measurements may become increasingly passive, minimizing cooperation burn-out, and more similar in nature, driving costs down.
A key in the evolution of measurement might be audio signals. They can emanate from anything. The Apollo Project, an ROI measurement system from Arbitron and Nielsen, measures proprietary audio signals encoded by broadcasters of TV, radio, and Internet video. Wal-Mart has been testing universal audio signals emanating from RFID chips to manage inventory and expedite checkout without having to scan UPC barcodes. If privacy issues subside, imagine unique RFID signatures emitting from cash registers at all sorts of retailers. Not only do you know that Johnny with his personal RFID listening device went to McDonald's, but by synching up with the store's time-stamped data, you know he bought a Big Mac, large order of fries, and small Diet Coke.
What do manufacturers, retailers, and service companies want responses to? If McDonald's wants store traffic or even specific purchases, the innovative Data Company could provide that by synchronizing its panel of RFID listeners with all the retailer's cash register databases. In each case of goods, there will be an abundant number of chips to listen for, as many predict RFID chips will replace barcodes. In the interim, much can be made by synchronizing RFID listening data with cash register data.
This evolution in response data may finally break the age-old CPM model, as a new Google model could transcend broadcast media. Advertisers would bid for inventory and pay-per-response. Google-like intermediaries or the broadcasters themselves will pick winners based on the value of the bid times the anticipated response rate. Optimizing the value of media units by predicting response rates will be the next war of algorithms.
Google is aggressive and ambitious. It wants to organize the world's information, and it's actively experimenting in managing ad placement to finance its ambition.
Will broadcasters become serious about optimizing the monetary value of their media units, or will they let themselves be co-opted by distributors such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, or possibly Comcast? Or will broadcasters and advertisers hire their own algorithm specialists and work through an independent exchange to process these transactions? Only time will tell.
by Mark Green
We swim in a sea of data. Focus groups, transactions, all sorts of surveys, Web traffic, assorted non-sale responses, TV meters, portable meters, mall intercepts, and contests - and that's just to name a few. But what matters, and what's the value? These are becoming strategic questions for many companies.
Answers lie in what metrics can be used to run your business. Management uses key business indicators that are as close as possible to the operational decisions they can control.
Imagine if your metrics guaranteed specific sales for each media unit purchased. The decision of how much to spend on that media unit becomes academic. On the flip side, with sufficient information across industry verticals, these metrics also illuminate the value of the media unit to the broadcasters.
The Google model invites prospective customers to bid for responses to keywords. Google makes dollars per response delivered, using Ad Sense algorithms to estimate how many responses it can deliver per bid to decide who wins the bid. But just because company A bids $2 per response and company B bids $1 does not mean that company A wins. If Ad Sense predicts that company B would get three times as many responses as A, then company B wins. And so does Google, by optimizing the monetary value of its search words.
Imagine the capitalization of the company that replaces Google's pay-per-click response model with a pay-per-inquiry/visit/sale response model. It's just a matter of time before someone corrals our increasingly electronic world and delivers this.
The simple solution is to collect everything in a single panel of consumers. The traditional barriers have always been the cost of specialized measurements to track different things and their consequent strains on maintaining cooperation in a representative panel. The traditional answer has been vertical specialization to manage for panel "burn-out" and measurement costs.
However, as technology evolves, these economics may change. Measurements may become increasingly passive, minimizing cooperation burn-out, and more similar in nature, driving costs down.
A key in the evolution of measurement might be audio signals. They can emanate from anything. The Apollo Project, an ROI measurement system from Arbitron and Nielsen, measures proprietary audio signals encoded by broadcasters of TV, radio, and Internet video. Wal-Mart has been testing universal audio signals emanating from RFID chips to manage inventory and expedite checkout without having to scan UPC barcodes. If privacy issues subside, imagine unique RFID signatures emitting from cash registers at all sorts of retailers. Not only do you know that Johnny with his personal RFID listening device went to McDonald's, but by synching up with the store's time-stamped data, you know he bought a Big Mac, large order of fries, and small Diet Coke.
What do manufacturers, retailers, and service companies want responses to? If McDonald's wants store traffic or even specific purchases, the innovative Data Company could provide that by synchronizing its panel of RFID listeners with all the retailer's cash register databases. In each case of goods, there will be an abundant number of chips to listen for, as many predict RFID chips will replace barcodes. In the interim, much can be made by synchronizing RFID listening data with cash register data.
This evolution in response data may finally break the age-old CPM model, as a new Google model could transcend broadcast media. Advertisers would bid for inventory and pay-per-response. Google-like intermediaries or the broadcasters themselves will pick winners based on the value of the bid times the anticipated response rate. Optimizing the value of media units by predicting response rates will be the next war of algorithms.
Google is aggressive and ambitious. It wants to organize the world's information, and it's actively experimenting in managing ad placement to finance its ambition.
Will broadcasters become serious about optimizing the monetary value of their media units, or will they let themselves be co-opted by distributors such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, or possibly Comcast? Or will broadcasters and advertisers hire their own algorithm specialists and work through an independent exchange to process these transactions? Only time will tell.
Mexico City to be one, giant Wi-Fi hotspot by 2008: mayor
All of Mexico City will be one free, wireless Internet hotspot by 2008, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard announced Monday.
The project "will accelerate the technological development of the city," Ebrard said after signing a contract with the Chinese telecoms and networking giant ZTE.
The project began as a hook-up for security cameras around the Mexican capital, he said.
"Why connect 4,000 cameras with fiber (optic cable) if everyone has wireless?" he said.
"If we are going to deploy 4,000 (security) cameras, I want them to be Wi-Fi," Ebrard said.
The project "will accelerate the technological development of the city," Ebrard said after signing a contract with the Chinese telecoms and networking giant ZTE.
The project began as a hook-up for security cameras around the Mexican capital, he said.
"Why connect 4,000 cameras with fiber (optic cable) if everyone has wireless?" he said.
"If we are going to deploy 4,000 (security) cameras, I want them to be Wi-Fi," Ebrard said.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Big bonuses for Time Warner chiefs
Big bonuses for Time Warner chiefs
World's largest media firm gives big bonuses to Dick Parsons and Jeff Bewkes; Motorola CEO Ed Zander plans to not run for re-election to Time Warner's board.
March 30 2007: 6:28 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Time Warner, the world's largest media company, disclosed in a regulatory filing Friday that chairman and chief executive officer Dick Parsons received annual compensation of $22.5 million last year, up from $16 million in 2005.
Parsons, who led Time Warner (Charts) through a tumultuous 2006 that saw the company fend off a challenge from activist shareholder Carl Icahn, increase its stock buyback to $20 billion and announce an overhaul of the struggling AOL Internet unit, received a $1.5 million salary last year, the same as 2005. (Time Warner is the parent company of CNNMoney.com.)
Time Warner chairman and CEO Dick Parsons received a bigger bonus last year...
...as did Time Warner COO Jeff Bewkes.
But Parsons' bonus increased from $7.5 million to $8.5 million. In addition, his options and restricted stock grants were worth $11.9 million last year, up from $6.56 million in 2005.
Time Warner's stock rose 26 percent in 2006, joining in a media stock rally that also lifted shares of competitors News Corp. (Charts), Walt Disney (Charts) and CBS (Charts).
In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Time Warner said that Parsons' bonus "should be clearly linked to the company's financial performance" and added that he "also effectively addressed challenges facing the company during 2005 and 2006 through significant efforts to reach out to investors, regulators and the business community."
Time Warner also completed its joint acquisition of bankrupt cable provider Adelphia with Comcast (Charts) last year, setting the stage for Time Warner to sell a stake in its Time Warner Cable (Charts) unit to the public this year.
Will Jeff Bewkes be Time Warner's next CEO?
In addition, Time Warner disclosed that president and COO Jeff Bewkes, who is widely expected to succeed Parsons as CEO when Parsons' contract runs out in May 2008, also received a boost to his overall compensation package last year.
Bewkes saw his salary increase from $1 million in 2005 to $1.25 million last year while his annual bonus rose to $7.5 million from $6 million. Overall, Bewkes' total compensation last year, which includes stock options, restricted stock and other compensation, was $18.7 million, compared to $12.5 million in 2006.
Shares of Time Warner slid 13 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $19.72 a share in regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday. The stock has fallen 9 percent year-to-date.
Separately, Time Warner disclosed that Ed Zander, the CEO of embattled cell phone maker Motorola (Charts), would not seek re-election for Time Warner's board of directors at the Time Warner's next annual shareholder meeting on May 18.
Zander, who just joined the Time Warner board in January, will serve as a director until the board meeting. Time Warner said in a filing that Zander decided not to run for Time Warner's board again "in light of the increased challenges facing Motorola, Inc. and the additional time commitments associated with his position at that company."
Motorola is now facing pressure from Icahn to boost shareholder returns
World's largest media firm gives big bonuses to Dick Parsons and Jeff Bewkes; Motorola CEO Ed Zander plans to not run for re-election to Time Warner's board.
March 30 2007: 6:28 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Time Warner, the world's largest media company, disclosed in a regulatory filing Friday that chairman and chief executive officer Dick Parsons received annual compensation of $22.5 million last year, up from $16 million in 2005.
Parsons, who led Time Warner (Charts) through a tumultuous 2006 that saw the company fend off a challenge from activist shareholder Carl Icahn, increase its stock buyback to $20 billion and announce an overhaul of the struggling AOL Internet unit, received a $1.5 million salary last year, the same as 2005. (Time Warner is the parent company of CNNMoney.com.)
Time Warner chairman and CEO Dick Parsons received a bigger bonus last year...
...as did Time Warner COO Jeff Bewkes.
But Parsons' bonus increased from $7.5 million to $8.5 million. In addition, his options and restricted stock grants were worth $11.9 million last year, up from $6.56 million in 2005.
Time Warner's stock rose 26 percent in 2006, joining in a media stock rally that also lifted shares of competitors News Corp. (Charts), Walt Disney (Charts) and CBS (Charts).
In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Time Warner said that Parsons' bonus "should be clearly linked to the company's financial performance" and added that he "also effectively addressed challenges facing the company during 2005 and 2006 through significant efforts to reach out to investors, regulators and the business community."
Time Warner also completed its joint acquisition of bankrupt cable provider Adelphia with Comcast (Charts) last year, setting the stage for Time Warner to sell a stake in its Time Warner Cable (Charts) unit to the public this year.
Will Jeff Bewkes be Time Warner's next CEO?
In addition, Time Warner disclosed that president and COO Jeff Bewkes, who is widely expected to succeed Parsons as CEO when Parsons' contract runs out in May 2008, also received a boost to his overall compensation package last year.
Bewkes saw his salary increase from $1 million in 2005 to $1.25 million last year while his annual bonus rose to $7.5 million from $6 million. Overall, Bewkes' total compensation last year, which includes stock options, restricted stock and other compensation, was $18.7 million, compared to $12.5 million in 2006.
Shares of Time Warner slid 13 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $19.72 a share in regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday. The stock has fallen 9 percent year-to-date.
Separately, Time Warner disclosed that Ed Zander, the CEO of embattled cell phone maker Motorola (Charts), would not seek re-election for Time Warner's board of directors at the Time Warner's next annual shareholder meeting on May 18.
Zander, who just joined the Time Warner board in January, will serve as a director until the board meeting. Time Warner said in a filing that Zander decided not to run for Time Warner's board again "in light of the increased challenges facing Motorola, Inc. and the additional time commitments associated with his position at that company."
Motorola is now facing pressure from Icahn to boost shareholder returns
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Internet takes bite out of Canadian magazine readership
Internet takes bite out of Canadian magazine readership
Media landscape increasingly fractured as rivals fight to maintain audiences
GRANT ROBERTSON
MEDIA REPORTER
Readership of several Canadian magazines is falling amid competition from the Internet, while some titles are cutting back circulation to focus on more lucrative subscribers.
Reader's Digest, the country's largest magazine with a circulation of 986,000 copies an issue, maintained the highest readership in the country with 7.08 million readers over age 12, according to data released yesterday by the PMB Print Measurement Bureau.
However, those numbers were down 1.7 per cent from last year's report. The PMB studies readership of magazines and newspapers over two-year periods. The latest numbers span the period from Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, 2006, and are compared with the same period spanning 2003-2005.
Canadian Geographic, which moved into the second spot in readership rankings, was a rarity in the industry as it boosted readership by 7.3 per cent, to 4.4 million.
Magazines are battling a migration of their readers to the Internet and are competing in an increasingly fractured media landscape where television, radio and newspapers are each vying to maintain their audiences in the face of competition from the Web.
And like the newspaper industry, which has seen some publications reducing the number of discounted copies they print to focus on paying subscribers who are more valuable to advertisers, some magazines are cutting back circulation.
That has also contributed to a drop in readers at some titles, said Bill Shields, editor of Masthead magazine, which tracks the industry.
Maclean's, which saw its overall readership rise 5.2 per cent in the last PMB numbers, fell 5.4 per cent this time around, to slightly more than 2.75 million readers. However, the magazine has been one of the more aggressive titles in cutting back its circulation since it relaunched.
Some magazines have sought to cull so-called junk subscribers, which generally cost more to pursue, in favour of their core market, Mr. Shields said.
"A junk subscriber is someone who has to be pestered eight or nine times before they renew and the cost of sending eight or nine renewal notices through first-class mail to someone often exceeds the money you get from the subscription."
The PMB tabulates readership by multiplying the number of readers per copy, determined in its surveys, by circulation. However, the magazine industry saw a broader decline in the number of readers per copy.
The industry trend shows readers per copy dropped from 5.5 in last year's report to 5.0 this year, which reflected the drop in readership numbers at dozens of titles.
In the business category, Report on Business Magazine had the highest readership with 1.37 million readers, down 5.3 per cent, while Financial Post Business dropped 6.3 per cent to 1.22 million readers. Canadian Business had 984,000 readers, down 9.2 per cent, according to PMB.
Several newspapers were tracked in the study. The Globe and Mail had more than 1.32 million readers on weekdays, which was up 0.2 per cent, and more than 1.24 million readers on Saturdays, down 1.9 per cent. The National Post had 813,000 readers on weekdays, down 3.2 per cent, and 659,000 readers on Saturdays, down 6.9 per cent.
Media landscape increasingly fractured as rivals fight to maintain audiences
GRANT ROBERTSON
MEDIA REPORTER
Readership of several Canadian magazines is falling amid competition from the Internet, while some titles are cutting back circulation to focus on more lucrative subscribers.
Reader's Digest, the country's largest magazine with a circulation of 986,000 copies an issue, maintained the highest readership in the country with 7.08 million readers over age 12, according to data released yesterday by the PMB Print Measurement Bureau.
However, those numbers were down 1.7 per cent from last year's report. The PMB studies readership of magazines and newspapers over two-year periods. The latest numbers span the period from Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, 2006, and are compared with the same period spanning 2003-2005.
Canadian Geographic, which moved into the second spot in readership rankings, was a rarity in the industry as it boosted readership by 7.3 per cent, to 4.4 million.
Magazines are battling a migration of their readers to the Internet and are competing in an increasingly fractured media landscape where television, radio and newspapers are each vying to maintain their audiences in the face of competition from the Web.
And like the newspaper industry, which has seen some publications reducing the number of discounted copies they print to focus on paying subscribers who are more valuable to advertisers, some magazines are cutting back circulation.
That has also contributed to a drop in readers at some titles, said Bill Shields, editor of Masthead magazine, which tracks the industry.
Maclean's, which saw its overall readership rise 5.2 per cent in the last PMB numbers, fell 5.4 per cent this time around, to slightly more than 2.75 million readers. However, the magazine has been one of the more aggressive titles in cutting back its circulation since it relaunched.
Some magazines have sought to cull so-called junk subscribers, which generally cost more to pursue, in favour of their core market, Mr. Shields said.
"A junk subscriber is someone who has to be pestered eight or nine times before they renew and the cost of sending eight or nine renewal notices through first-class mail to someone often exceeds the money you get from the subscription."
The PMB tabulates readership by multiplying the number of readers per copy, determined in its surveys, by circulation. However, the magazine industry saw a broader decline in the number of readers per copy.
The industry trend shows readers per copy dropped from 5.5 in last year's report to 5.0 this year, which reflected the drop in readership numbers at dozens of titles.
In the business category, Report on Business Magazine had the highest readership with 1.37 million readers, down 5.3 per cent, while Financial Post Business dropped 6.3 per cent to 1.22 million readers. Canadian Business had 984,000 readers, down 9.2 per cent, according to PMB.
Several newspapers were tracked in the study. The Globe and Mail had more than 1.32 million readers on weekdays, which was up 0.2 per cent, and more than 1.24 million readers on Saturdays, down 1.9 per cent. The National Post had 813,000 readers on weekdays, down 3.2 per cent, and 659,000 readers on Saturdays, down 6.9 per cent.
Web news readers have greater attention span: U.S. study
Web news readers have greater attention span: U.S. study
By Belinda Goldsmith
WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - People who use the Internet to read the news have a greater attention span than print readers, according to a U.S. study that refutes the idea that Web surfers jump around and don't read much.
The EyeTrack07 survey by the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school, found online readers read 77 percent of what they chose to read while broadsheet newspaper readers read an average of 62 percent, and tabloid readers about 57 percent.
Sara Quinn, director of the Poynter EyeTrack07 project, said this was the first large public study internationally to compare the differences between how people read the news online and in newspapers.
She said they were surprised to find that such a large percentage of story text was read online as this exploded the myth that Web readers had a shorter attention span.
"Nearly two-thirds of online readers, once they chose a particular item to read, read all of text," Quinn told Reuters on Thursday at the American Society of Newspaper Editors' annual conference where the study was released.
"That speaks to the power of long-form journalism."
The study also found that people paid more attention to items written in a question and answer format or as lists, and preferred documentary news photographs to staged or studio pictures.
The study involved testing nearly 600 readers in four U.S. markets -- readers of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, The St. Petersburg Times in Florida, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, and the Philadelphia Daily News.
The test subjects, who were 49 percent women and 51 percent men aged between 18 and 60, were asked to read that day's edition in either print or online over 30 publication days.
Two small cameras were mounted above the subject's right eye to monitor what they were reading. They were allowed to read whatever they liked.
The study found about 75 percent of print readers were methodical compared to half of online readers.
Methodical readers tend to read from top to bottom without much scanning around the page, read in a two-page view when reading in print, and re-read some material.
But whether online readers were methodical or scanners, they read about the same volume of story text.
Quinn said a prototype test also found that people answered more questions about a news item correctly if the information had been presented in an alternative manner rather than traditional narrative.
This could have been a question and answer format, a timeline, short sidebar or a list.
"Subjects paid an average of 15 percent more attention to alternative story forms than to regular story text in print. In broadsheet, this figure rose to 30 percent," the study said.
Large headlines and photos in print were looked a first but online readers went for navigation bars and teasers.
Quinn said more findings from the study would be released at the Poynter conference in April.
By Belinda Goldsmith
WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - People who use the Internet to read the news have a greater attention span than print readers, according to a U.S. study that refutes the idea that Web surfers jump around and don't read much.
The EyeTrack07 survey by the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school, found online readers read 77 percent of what they chose to read while broadsheet newspaper readers read an average of 62 percent, and tabloid readers about 57 percent.
Sara Quinn, director of the Poynter EyeTrack07 project, said this was the first large public study internationally to compare the differences between how people read the news online and in newspapers.
She said they were surprised to find that such a large percentage of story text was read online as this exploded the myth that Web readers had a shorter attention span.
"Nearly two-thirds of online readers, once they chose a particular item to read, read all of text," Quinn told Reuters on Thursday at the American Society of Newspaper Editors' annual conference where the study was released.
"That speaks to the power of long-form journalism."
The study also found that people paid more attention to items written in a question and answer format or as lists, and preferred documentary news photographs to staged or studio pictures.
The study involved testing nearly 600 readers in four U.S. markets -- readers of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, The St. Petersburg Times in Florida, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, and the Philadelphia Daily News.
The test subjects, who were 49 percent women and 51 percent men aged between 18 and 60, were asked to read that day's edition in either print or online over 30 publication days.
Two small cameras were mounted above the subject's right eye to monitor what they were reading. They were allowed to read whatever they liked.
The study found about 75 percent of print readers were methodical compared to half of online readers.
Methodical readers tend to read from top to bottom without much scanning around the page, read in a two-page view when reading in print, and re-read some material.
But whether online readers were methodical or scanners, they read about the same volume of story text.
Quinn said a prototype test also found that people answered more questions about a news item correctly if the information had been presented in an alternative manner rather than traditional narrative.
This could have been a question and answer format, a timeline, short sidebar or a list.
"Subjects paid an average of 15 percent more attention to alternative story forms than to regular story text in print. In broadsheet, this figure rose to 30 percent," the study said.
Large headlines and photos in print were looked a first but online readers went for navigation bars and teasers.
Quinn said more findings from the study would be released at the Poynter conference in April.
Superstar Smackdown: BoSacks vs. Mr. Magazine
Superstar Smackdown: BoSacks vs. Mr. Magazine
Posted by Patrick Henry on March 11th, 2007
http://printceoblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/superstar-smackdown-%e2%80%9cbosacks-vs-mr-magazine%e2%80%9d/#comments
It may sound a bit like a matchup from the card of a WWE event, but it actually was the title of more elevated clash between two print media experts at the Publishing Executive/Book Business conference and expo in New York City last week.
BoSacks is Bob Sacks (www.bosacks.com), the iconoclastic publishing consultant and commentator. Mr. Magazine is Dr. Samir Husni (www.mrmagazine.com), chair of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi and chronicler of the magazine industry for the last 21 years. They went to the mat over their views of the future of magazines, with Dr. Husni asserting their vitality and Sacks warning of negative trends undercutting them.
Dr. Husni, whose specialty is tracking the launches of new titles, insisted that the best hope for magazine publishing lies in ink on paper and not in digital alternatives. Magazines, he said, continue to exert a visual and physical appeal that consumers find irresistible. How else, he asked, are we to explain the enduring popularity of People, which hasn’t seen fit to change its format or editorial despite all of the competitive pressure that the Internet has brought to bear?
He said the launch of 926 new titles last year demonstrates that entrepreneurs are still willing to bet the farm on periodicals despite “horrifying stories of magazines that failed”—60 percent of them within their first year of publication. Magazines are so attractive to readers, Dr. Husni added, that newspapers are “committing suicide” by failing to be more like them in tone, style, and content.
Sacks acknowledged that magazines still have an edge over digital media when it comes to things like portability and ease of use. But he said their user-friendliness can’t hide the fact that overall magazine circulation growth “stopped dead” years ago or that a legendarily dysfunctional single-copy distribution system routinely discards up to 70 percent of some titles as unsold returns.
According to Sacks, postal rate increases and rising manufacturing costs threaten to price magazines and other printed matter out of the reach of most readers. Like the horse—once the universal service animal but now a plaything exclusively for the wealthy—the printed periodical faces the prospect that “20 years from now, only the rich are going to be able to afford a magazine or a book.” Sacks also talked about steady progress in e-paper, a digital alternative that may well give conventionally printed products a run for their money in the user-friendliness department.
The friendly smackdown between BoSacks and Mr. Magazine was a reminder that facts alone can’t explain why print survives or predict how it will be impacted by alternative media.
If magazines can’t increase circulation and decrease waste, it’s hard to think of them as anything but withering relics of a medium with a great future behind it. On the other hand, no matter how horrendous some of its inefficiencies may appear, the magazine industry still manages to put hundreds millions of copies into the hands of loyal readers who don’t know and probably wouldn’t care that seven of every 10 copies may be headed for the landfill. And while technologies like e-paper sooner or later will claim their share of the periodical market, no one has yet managed to sell a right-hand page to an advertiser in the e-paper equivalent of a conventional magazine.
Of course, perspicacious magazine publishers are covering both bets by shifting some of their activity away from print and into digital properties. During the Q&A, an executive of a well known b-to-b magazine publishing house mentioned that his company now derives $30 million of its $250 million in annual revenues from online sources. The company would have been in trouble had it not jumped on the digital bandwagon when it did, the executive said.
Posted by Patrick Henry on March 11th, 2007
http://printceoblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/superstar-smackdown-%e2%80%9cbosacks-vs-mr-magazine%e2%80%9d/#comments
It may sound a bit like a matchup from the card of a WWE event, but it actually was the title of more elevated clash between two print media experts at the Publishing Executive/Book Business conference and expo in New York City last week.
BoSacks is Bob Sacks (www.bosacks.com), the iconoclastic publishing consultant and commentator. Mr. Magazine is Dr. Samir Husni (www.mrmagazine.com), chair of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi and chronicler of the magazine industry for the last 21 years. They went to the mat over their views of the future of magazines, with Dr. Husni asserting their vitality and Sacks warning of negative trends undercutting them.
Dr. Husni, whose specialty is tracking the launches of new titles, insisted that the best hope for magazine publishing lies in ink on paper and not in digital alternatives. Magazines, he said, continue to exert a visual and physical appeal that consumers find irresistible. How else, he asked, are we to explain the enduring popularity of People, which hasn’t seen fit to change its format or editorial despite all of the competitive pressure that the Internet has brought to bear?
He said the launch of 926 new titles last year demonstrates that entrepreneurs are still willing to bet the farm on periodicals despite “horrifying stories of magazines that failed”—60 percent of them within their first year of publication. Magazines are so attractive to readers, Dr. Husni added, that newspapers are “committing suicide” by failing to be more like them in tone, style, and content.
Sacks acknowledged that magazines still have an edge over digital media when it comes to things like portability and ease of use. But he said their user-friendliness can’t hide the fact that overall magazine circulation growth “stopped dead” years ago or that a legendarily dysfunctional single-copy distribution system routinely discards up to 70 percent of some titles as unsold returns.
According to Sacks, postal rate increases and rising manufacturing costs threaten to price magazines and other printed matter out of the reach of most readers. Like the horse—once the universal service animal but now a plaything exclusively for the wealthy—the printed periodical faces the prospect that “20 years from now, only the rich are going to be able to afford a magazine or a book.” Sacks also talked about steady progress in e-paper, a digital alternative that may well give conventionally printed products a run for their money in the user-friendliness department.
The friendly smackdown between BoSacks and Mr. Magazine was a reminder that facts alone can’t explain why print survives or predict how it will be impacted by alternative media.
If magazines can’t increase circulation and decrease waste, it’s hard to think of them as anything but withering relics of a medium with a great future behind it. On the other hand, no matter how horrendous some of its inefficiencies may appear, the magazine industry still manages to put hundreds millions of copies into the hands of loyal readers who don’t know and probably wouldn’t care that seven of every 10 copies may be headed for the landfill. And while technologies like e-paper sooner or later will claim their share of the periodical market, no one has yet managed to sell a right-hand page to an advertiser in the e-paper equivalent of a conventional magazine.
Of course, perspicacious magazine publishers are covering both bets by shifting some of their activity away from print and into digital properties. During the Q&A, an executive of a well known b-to-b magazine publishing house mentioned that his company now derives $30 million of its $250 million in annual revenues from online sources. The company would have been in trouble had it not jumped on the digital bandwagon when it did, the executive said.
It's All in the Delivery
It's All in the Delivery
In 25,000 years, nothing has really changed except the method of sharing content.
No matter how far back in history you go, humans have captured the moment and written it down, somewhere. Whether you look at the 25,000-year-old Ishango baton from the Congo that recorded a six-month lunar calendar, which was the first known non-cerebral memory device, now called a book … or the cave paintings of France … or the scrolls of the Library of Alexandria … or the retooled olive press of Mr. Gutenberg, you couldn’t find a more interesting and complex period of our industry, of information distribution, than now. OK, maybe Mr. Gutenberg’s era was pretty exciting too.
From the moment movable type was invented till just a few years ago our path was crystal clear and unavoidable. Gutenberg created movable type from soft metal, and an industry was born from the rapid distribution of information.
Did you know he swore his printing partners to secrecy? And upon their deaths, the contract read that the “idea and process” of movable type defaulted back to Gutenberg and his heirs. Nice try, Johannes. Too bad that he died in poverty. Imagine that—the man who invented the world’s first real mass-information distribution system dies in poverty.
An Irresistible Force
The growth of the printing press and the distribution of information was an irresistible force, whose only combatant at the time was ignorance and what seems to us now extremely limited technology.
Of course that limitation is only apparent to us as we look back with tremendous hindsight. The technology of that day was nothing less than amazing, as is our reaching out to the stars. It took a single scribe over a year to copy a single book. Did you know that it took 200 to 300 sheepskins to make a bible? And there was no “preflighting” and “spell checking” to make sure that the scribe got it right.
But Gutenberg could turn out hundreds of books in a week, each one identical to the next. So it is not hard to envision the exponential growth of … well, everything. You no longer needed old wise men to learn from. You didn’t need to be an apprentice. You could learn anything and everything from a book.
Well, we all know the story of how the first book was a bible. But do you know what the very next books were? The topics were exactly the same things that are popular today. Craft books, then scientific books, then the explosion of thought and free thinking.
The printing press reduced the cost of books, increased their availability and encouraged the spread of literacy. It helped alter the economic, scientific and ideological outlooks for the next five centuries. It must have spread something like a virus, and the net result was that it democratized knowledge. And that is no small thing. Yes, that is the business Gutenberg was in, and so are you.
From Storytellers to E-tellers
We have gone from the storytellers of the oral tradition and cave paintings to memory devices like batons and parchment scribed by hand. We have gone from the printing press to new forms of electronic communication. Each new development in the history of communication has always further democratized the delivery of information. Nothing has really changed, except the method of delivery.
So if you think about it, printing on dead trees is no longer the only way of reproducing books and magazines. The process of reading, however, has not changed an iota; it is the same as it has always been.
We are still reading exactly the same way we did 25,000 years ago—we are still mentally interpreting written symbols. We are exploring new ways to do the same things the Ishango shaman did. Capturing ideas, storing it outside of the brain, and passing it on to other humans. Nothing has changed in 25,000 years except the method of delivery. PE
Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.
In 25,000 years, nothing has really changed except the method of sharing content.
No matter how far back in history you go, humans have captured the moment and written it down, somewhere. Whether you look at the 25,000-year-old Ishango baton from the Congo that recorded a six-month lunar calendar, which was the first known non-cerebral memory device, now called a book … or the cave paintings of France … or the scrolls of the Library of Alexandria … or the retooled olive press of Mr. Gutenberg, you couldn’t find a more interesting and complex period of our industry, of information distribution, than now. OK, maybe Mr. Gutenberg’s era was pretty exciting too.
From the moment movable type was invented till just a few years ago our path was crystal clear and unavoidable. Gutenberg created movable type from soft metal, and an industry was born from the rapid distribution of information.
Did you know he swore his printing partners to secrecy? And upon their deaths, the contract read that the “idea and process” of movable type defaulted back to Gutenberg and his heirs. Nice try, Johannes. Too bad that he died in poverty. Imagine that—the man who invented the world’s first real mass-information distribution system dies in poverty.
An Irresistible Force
The growth of the printing press and the distribution of information was an irresistible force, whose only combatant at the time was ignorance and what seems to us now extremely limited technology.
Of course that limitation is only apparent to us as we look back with tremendous hindsight. The technology of that day was nothing less than amazing, as is our reaching out to the stars. It took a single scribe over a year to copy a single book. Did you know that it took 200 to 300 sheepskins to make a bible? And there was no “preflighting” and “spell checking” to make sure that the scribe got it right.
But Gutenberg could turn out hundreds of books in a week, each one identical to the next. So it is not hard to envision the exponential growth of … well, everything. You no longer needed old wise men to learn from. You didn’t need to be an apprentice. You could learn anything and everything from a book.
Well, we all know the story of how the first book was a bible. But do you know what the very next books were? The topics were exactly the same things that are popular today. Craft books, then scientific books, then the explosion of thought and free thinking.
The printing press reduced the cost of books, increased their availability and encouraged the spread of literacy. It helped alter the economic, scientific and ideological outlooks for the next five centuries. It must have spread something like a virus, and the net result was that it democratized knowledge. And that is no small thing. Yes, that is the business Gutenberg was in, and so are you.
From Storytellers to E-tellers
We have gone from the storytellers of the oral tradition and cave paintings to memory devices like batons and parchment scribed by hand. We have gone from the printing press to new forms of electronic communication. Each new development in the history of communication has always further democratized the delivery of information. Nothing has really changed, except the method of delivery.
So if you think about it, printing on dead trees is no longer the only way of reproducing books and magazines. The process of reading, however, has not changed an iota; it is the same as it has always been.
We are still reading exactly the same way we did 25,000 years ago—we are still mentally interpreting written symbols. We are exploring new ways to do the same things the Ishango shaman did. Capturing ideas, storing it outside of the brain, and passing it on to other humans. Nothing has changed in 25,000 years except the method of delivery. PE
Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.
Monday, December 25, 2006
How to Keep Your Job in Today’s Changing Publishing World
BoSacks: How to Keep Your Job in Today’s Changing Publishing World
The last thing anyone wants during this unique transition period in publishing is to be downsized and out of work. Yet, it is an ongoing trend for publishers to minimize the workforce and still publish on a regular periodic time table. So, I offer you some tips on how to not only stay employed, but to prosper and grow.
I’m not going to lecture you on the niceties of corporate cubicle etiquette, ridiculous office romances, chronic corporate complaining or the needs of showering before you go to work. If you have any of those problems, put this magazine down now and start to clean out your desk, because there is nothing I or anyone else can do to help you. On the other hand, if you have the desire to grow, learn and thrive in publishing, listen up. There are some simple rules that will have positive long-term career results.
In this world of ours, everything is layered like an onion, and no man is an island. By that, I mean that you have at least two lives, not one: your home life and your work life. In the work world you also have two lives: the one you have now and the one you will have in the future. In 21st-century publishing, it is highly unlikely that you will retire from the job you have today. So your two jobs are trying to keep the one you have now and preparing for the one you will have in the future. Think of the work you do today as preparation for the work you will do at you next job.
You have three choices. Stagnate and stay in the position you have (those people get fired first), keep your eye on your immediate supervisor’s position, or get a job elsewhere.
What you really want for your next job is a promotion. That might mean that you want your boss’s job. What do you need to know to do your boss’s job? Remember that all bosses also either get their boss’s job, get fired or get laid off. And as nature hates a vacuum, you must be in the right spot with the correct credentials, willing and able to take the opening spot on the roster.
2 Tips for keeping your job and advancing your career
1Understand that publishing is a process. It has a beginning, middle and an end. Where are you in that process? Do you fully understand it? Do you know what happens before and after your involvement?
Take the blinders off and complete your education of the entire publishing process. Editors, do you understand production? Ad sales, do you have a clue about the manufacturing process? Production people, do you understand circulation? (OK, that was a trick question—nobody understands circulation, including circulators.)
To excel in your career, you should at least be familiar with the languages of the other departments with which you work. The industry is changing. We are putting out more and more magazines with fewer and fewer people. Publishing personnel and the various departments are multitasking and blending. Columnists are now writers, typesetters and editors. Artists need to understand production page specifications and sometimes act as production people. Editors sometimes do page make-up and Web development. Good production personnel speak all publishing languages. We are a growing group of skill-blended professionalism.
I really believe that knowledge is power. Industry knowledge is employment power.
Imagine yourself on your next interview. If you can speak knowledgeably of the entire process, you are a more desirable candidate. Knowing what the other departments actually do is important. Inter-department communication and knowledge facilitates successful and efficient teamwork.
2Network and join professional organizations. If your company won’t pay for it, pay for it yourself. As I mentioned, your current job is only a part of your career. A good professional group has the collective intelligence of the entire industry. They are a tremendous resource. If you have a question or stumble upon an unfamiliar situation, someone in that group knows the answer. If you ever get that pink slip, they know where the new jobs are. Professional organizations are important on many levels, not the least of which is exposure with your contemporaries.
Essentially, you have either a job or a career. Career people stay employed. You must always be working on your career. Stay alert and continue to educate yourself about your industry.
The last thing anyone wants during this unique transition period in publishing is to be downsized and out of work. Yet, it is an ongoing trend for publishers to minimize the workforce and still publish on a regular periodic time table. So, I offer you some tips on how to not only stay employed, but to prosper and grow.
I’m not going to lecture you on the niceties of corporate cubicle etiquette, ridiculous office romances, chronic corporate complaining or the needs of showering before you go to work. If you have any of those problems, put this magazine down now and start to clean out your desk, because there is nothing I or anyone else can do to help you. On the other hand, if you have the desire to grow, learn and thrive in publishing, listen up. There are some simple rules that will have positive long-term career results.
In this world of ours, everything is layered like an onion, and no man is an island. By that, I mean that you have at least two lives, not one: your home life and your work life. In the work world you also have two lives: the one you have now and the one you will have in the future. In 21st-century publishing, it is highly unlikely that you will retire from the job you have today. So your two jobs are trying to keep the one you have now and preparing for the one you will have in the future. Think of the work you do today as preparation for the work you will do at you next job.
You have three choices. Stagnate and stay in the position you have (those people get fired first), keep your eye on your immediate supervisor’s position, or get a job elsewhere.
What you really want for your next job is a promotion. That might mean that you want your boss’s job. What do you need to know to do your boss’s job? Remember that all bosses also either get their boss’s job, get fired or get laid off. And as nature hates a vacuum, you must be in the right spot with the correct credentials, willing and able to take the opening spot on the roster.
2 Tips for keeping your job and advancing your career
1Understand that publishing is a process. It has a beginning, middle and an end. Where are you in that process? Do you fully understand it? Do you know what happens before and after your involvement?
Take the blinders off and complete your education of the entire publishing process. Editors, do you understand production? Ad sales, do you have a clue about the manufacturing process? Production people, do you understand circulation? (OK, that was a trick question—nobody understands circulation, including circulators.)
To excel in your career, you should at least be familiar with the languages of the other departments with which you work. The industry is changing. We are putting out more and more magazines with fewer and fewer people. Publishing personnel and the various departments are multitasking and blending. Columnists are now writers, typesetters and editors. Artists need to understand production page specifications and sometimes act as production people. Editors sometimes do page make-up and Web development. Good production personnel speak all publishing languages. We are a growing group of skill-blended professionalism.
I really believe that knowledge is power. Industry knowledge is employment power.
Imagine yourself on your next interview. If you can speak knowledgeably of the entire process, you are a more desirable candidate. Knowing what the other departments actually do is important. Inter-department communication and knowledge facilitates successful and efficient teamwork.
2Network and join professional organizations. If your company won’t pay for it, pay for it yourself. As I mentioned, your current job is only a part of your career. A good professional group has the collective intelligence of the entire industry. They are a tremendous resource. If you have a question or stumble upon an unfamiliar situation, someone in that group knows the answer. If you ever get that pink slip, they know where the new jobs are. Professional organizations are important on many levels, not the least of which is exposure with your contemporaries.
Essentially, you have either a job or a career. Career people stay employed. You must always be working on your career. Stay alert and continue to educate yourself about your industry.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
5 Easy Steps to Publishing Nirvana
5 Easy Steps to Publishing Nirvana
By Robert M. Sacks
Let's get down to some serious business. Does anyone in their right mind think that writing, journalism or publishing is just going to fade away and disappear? Does anyone think that there isn't going to be the need to be informed, be knowledgeable, or just know stuff? Here is news for those in doubt of their careers and the continuance of the honest profession of being a publisher/printer. People have always had the need for information and will always require news, instructions, directions and knowledge.
The only difference now from yesterday or last year or last century is how they get to know what they know. The human race has always required and worked to improve information distribution. As far back as the caveman, they processed the information of the day, and transferred those ideas and thoughts to the walls of their homes and religious places. As society progressed, we improved the process.
The first tool for storing portable information outside of the brain is called, in today's terms, a baton. It carried thoughts and stored information on an inscribed stick to be carried about by a shaman. It stored the phases of the moon and other important astrologically dependent information, such as the best time to plant seeds. Planting seeds at the proper time is a good idea if you like to eat on a regular basis. Think of the baton as the first Flash memory JumpDrive.
We have been drawing on walls, carving on rocks, inking on papyrus, and cloistering men in monasteries who repeatedly copied information ad infinitum with mistakes and all.
So have no fear about your chosen profession. The process of information distribution is not going to go away. Indeed, it is accelerating at an unprecedented rate.
What you need to consider is the true value of your information to the general public and the process by which you distribute this knowledge.
Five easy steps to publishing nirvana:
1 Who is my target audience?
2 Where is my targeted audience?
3 What is the real value of my edit (information) to that audience?
4 What is the most efficient method to reach the maximum targeted audience?
5 How do I keep my information valuable and fresh for my targeted audience?
These may seem like simple concepts on the surface, but they are not. They constitute a complex, Zen-like formula. Success is measured by the antique term called profit. And to achieve the Zen-like state of profit, you must follow the Bo-formula to publishing nirvana (in the box above). On the atomic level, it can all be distilled down to the simple equation of RV = RP or, for the laymen, real value equals real profit.
In this era of abundant information, is your edit of any real value? If so, how valuable is it? If it is valuable, to whom is it valuable? This is where the concept of niche comes into play. The value of when to plant seeds is only valuable to a select few. And to those few, only information on certain types of seeds would be of value.
In today's publishing world there are three key components: the jewels of extremely valuable edit, the readers who need and desire those gems, and the ability to get the booty into the clients' hands by the most efficient means possible. In my experience great edit trumps the other two. To paraphrase loosely, if you have the appropriately precious edit, they will come.
The last necessary element to the so-stated condition of publishing nirvana is the honest and sometimes brutal truth. This can be the hardest part of the Bo-formula. Like an alchemist of old lore, here is a Bo-exercise for you to try. Find a hand-held mirror and hold it up about 18 inches from your face. Look into the mirror and ask yourself the five questions listed to the left. Did you flinch? Did you grimace? Did you honestly know all the answers? Did you divine the truth? Only you know that for sure.
Bob Sacks is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, "Heard on the Web." Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.
By Robert M. Sacks
Let's get down to some serious business. Does anyone in their right mind think that writing, journalism or publishing is just going to fade away and disappear? Does anyone think that there isn't going to be the need to be informed, be knowledgeable, or just know stuff? Here is news for those in doubt of their careers and the continuance of the honest profession of being a publisher/printer. People have always had the need for information and will always require news, instructions, directions and knowledge.
The only difference now from yesterday or last year or last century is how they get to know what they know. The human race has always required and worked to improve information distribution. As far back as the caveman, they processed the information of the day, and transferred those ideas and thoughts to the walls of their homes and religious places. As society progressed, we improved the process.
The first tool for storing portable information outside of the brain is called, in today's terms, a baton. It carried thoughts and stored information on an inscribed stick to be carried about by a shaman. It stored the phases of the moon and other important astrologically dependent information, such as the best time to plant seeds. Planting seeds at the proper time is a good idea if you like to eat on a regular basis. Think of the baton as the first Flash memory JumpDrive.
We have been drawing on walls, carving on rocks, inking on papyrus, and cloistering men in monasteries who repeatedly copied information ad infinitum with mistakes and all.
So have no fear about your chosen profession. The process of information distribution is not going to go away. Indeed, it is accelerating at an unprecedented rate.
What you need to consider is the true value of your information to the general public and the process by which you distribute this knowledge.
Five easy steps to publishing nirvana:
1 Who is my target audience?
2 Where is my targeted audience?
3 What is the real value of my edit (information) to that audience?
4 What is the most efficient method to reach the maximum targeted audience?
5 How do I keep my information valuable and fresh for my targeted audience?
These may seem like simple concepts on the surface, but they are not. They constitute a complex, Zen-like formula. Success is measured by the antique term called profit. And to achieve the Zen-like state of profit, you must follow the Bo-formula to publishing nirvana (in the box above). On the atomic level, it can all be distilled down to the simple equation of RV = RP or, for the laymen, real value equals real profit.
In this era of abundant information, is your edit of any real value? If so, how valuable is it? If it is valuable, to whom is it valuable? This is where the concept of niche comes into play. The value of when to plant seeds is only valuable to a select few. And to those few, only information on certain types of seeds would be of value.
In today's publishing world there are three key components: the jewels of extremely valuable edit, the readers who need and desire those gems, and the ability to get the booty into the clients' hands by the most efficient means possible. In my experience great edit trumps the other two. To paraphrase loosely, if you have the appropriately precious edit, they will come.
The last necessary element to the so-stated condition of publishing nirvana is the honest and sometimes brutal truth. This can be the hardest part of the Bo-formula. Like an alchemist of old lore, here is a Bo-exercise for you to try. Find a hand-held mirror and hold it up about 18 inches from your face. Look into the mirror and ask yourself the five questions listed to the left. Did you flinch? Did you grimace? Did you honestly know all the answers? Did you divine the truth? Only you know that for sure.
Bob Sacks is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, "Heard on the Web." Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.
Friday, September 15, 2006
BoSacks Speaks Out: Bill Ziff, Publishing Pioneer, dies at 76
BoSacks Speaks Out: Bill Ziff, Publishing Pioneer, dies at 76
For a man of many words, I find my word skills insufficient to the task of describing to those of you who didn’t know of him, the genius, and multiple successes of niche master, Bill Ziff. He was one of the giants of that great publishing period at the twilight of the last century. Not that great publishing empires are over, but rather that they are changed to an almost unrecognizable form in relation to past renditions. I guess old publishing was more linear and two dimensional, compared to current trends which need to have three or four dimensions of content distribution.
There is no easy way to form a comparison. Writers will still write, editors will still edit, and publishers of course will still publish. But Bill Ziff actually created two huge niche publishing empires. He sold the first due to health considerations and, upon recovery, started a new and tremendously successful publishing machine the second time around just as strong or perhaps even stronger if the sales price of $1.7 billion means anything to you. And that was in last century dollars. That is an amazing feat. I know of no other publisher who has achieved a similar success twice. I am sure that someone may have done it, but tonight I am drawing a blank and am not aware of it. Bill Ziff was the Zen master, the Niche master of all time and space when it comes to publishing formulas. He seemed prescient in his ability to identify and see the addicted brand devoted hobbyist before anyone else and maximize that vision with fantastic ad revenues.
I had the good fortune to work for Bill Ziff and Ziff- Davis Publishing in the early 1990s. Those were the peak years of Bill’s second empire. Our struggles seem to me, almost comical in retrospect. The problems then were the reverse of today’s publishing woes. How big a binder could we find to print an unheard of number of folios? Monthly magazine, inches thick, that were gargantuan in page count and overflowing with bound-in inserts.
All that is true, but what is left unsaid so far is the quality of the way in which the employees were treated. By whatever criteria one can use to judge the employees were treated better there than any other place I can remember. From heath care, salaries, vacation time or free membership to health clubs, there was a constant delivery of generous compensation and respect. The result was the staff was happy to work there and was equally happy to work hard, very hard.
All that was created and crafted by the genius and inspired management of Mr. Bill Ziff.
For a man of many words, I find my word skills insufficient to the task of describing to those of you who didn’t know of him, the genius, and multiple successes of niche master, Bill Ziff. He was one of the giants of that great publishing period at the twilight of the last century. Not that great publishing empires are over, but rather that they are changed to an almost unrecognizable form in relation to past renditions. I guess old publishing was more linear and two dimensional, compared to current trends which need to have three or four dimensions of content distribution.
There is no easy way to form a comparison. Writers will still write, editors will still edit, and publishers of course will still publish. But Bill Ziff actually created two huge niche publishing empires. He sold the first due to health considerations and, upon recovery, started a new and tremendously successful publishing machine the second time around just as strong or perhaps even stronger if the sales price of $1.7 billion means anything to you. And that was in last century dollars. That is an amazing feat. I know of no other publisher who has achieved a similar success twice. I am sure that someone may have done it, but tonight I am drawing a blank and am not aware of it. Bill Ziff was the Zen master, the Niche master of all time and space when it comes to publishing formulas. He seemed prescient in his ability to identify and see the addicted brand devoted hobbyist before anyone else and maximize that vision with fantastic ad revenues.
I had the good fortune to work for Bill Ziff and Ziff- Davis Publishing in the early 1990s. Those were the peak years of Bill’s second empire. Our struggles seem to me, almost comical in retrospect. The problems then were the reverse of today’s publishing woes. How big a binder could we find to print an unheard of number of folios? Monthly magazine, inches thick, that were gargantuan in page count and overflowing with bound-in inserts.
All that is true, but what is left unsaid so far is the quality of the way in which the employees were treated. By whatever criteria one can use to judge the employees were treated better there than any other place I can remember. From heath care, salaries, vacation time or free membership to health clubs, there was a constant delivery of generous compensation and respect. The result was the staff was happy to work there and was equally happy to work hard, very hard.
All that was created and crafted by the genius and inspired management of Mr. Bill Ziff.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
A Publisher's Secret Weapon
"Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence:
America's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993
www.bosacks.com
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
- Jules de Gaultier
.............From the General Publication News Files...............
A Publisher's Secret Weapon
In the era of Internet publishing wars, make sure you are armed to the teeth.
By Bob Sacks
http://www.printmediamag.com/doc/285326705756851.bsp
What good is a balloon with no air to fill it? What good is a rocket without the fuel to propel it? Of course, they are no good at all. They all have interesting potential, but that is all.
The same holds true for the Internet. The Internet is nothing but a tool. You can't hold it or see it, at least not without the secret weapon that publishers have. It is, for all intents and purposes, as empty or as dumb as a rock.
What do people do on the Internet? They can basically do one of three things: They can hear, they can see, and they can read. All the Internet really does is act as the freight train for information. It is strictly a vehicle for the distribution of electrons. There is nothing else that the Internet does.
It is publishers who possess the secret weapon that give the Internet its appeal. It is publishers who use this oft-forgotten secret weapon who will prosper in the coming Internet wars. But let's call the secret weapon by its other not-so-secret name. It is content that will rule the freight trains and fill the cars with information distilled down to electrons for global distribution.
The publisher is empowered to place that content on paper with ink, on the Internet with pixels, or beamed to a PDA, cell phone, or even a sheet of e-paper by wireless connection. The delivery method is and should be totally irrelevant to both the publisher and the consumer. With the only possible exception that electronic information distribution is by far the fastest and least expensive.
Now, each consumer has a different reading comfort level. That is OK, we can deliver exactly what they want, when and how they want it. The most important thing to remember is that successful publishers have exactly what the public wants. Content, in the multi-varied form of facts, fiction and gossip, all distilled down to one "word" information. That is what the Internet is all about. Getting information. Everything else that is going on is a distraction or a subset of getting information.
And at the end of the day, what is it that publishers have in abundance? Information. The better the information, the more the public will be willing to pay for it.
So we have nothing to fear as an industry, for we are content. The rest is simply a matter of having information good enough to charge for and the mundane task of distributing it.
THE SECRET TO GREAT CONTENT
That being said, the trick is to have the unique and specific content that readers must have. The only way to achieve that is with great editors and writers.
This, my friends, is often overlooked by bean counters and bottom-line publishers. Any publishing house can get hack writers or dispassionate editors. They can, and they do. That is the clear path to diminishing readers and diminishing returns, especially in this era of content glut.
But the smart publisher that invests in great edit is planting seeds into the Ethernet that will sprout readers clamoring for more, willing to pay the piper for the jewels of addictive content.
Giving the editor the power to get the brightest minds and set up an infrastructure of intriguing, addictive, thoughtful wordmanship—that is investing. Giving the editor the support of a competent staff—that is investing. Creating a tangible atmosphere in the industry that you are the very best, the most knowledgeable, most articulate, most visionary publishers—that is investing.
There is no known cure for addictive content. And the only way to get it is to have great editors and really compelling writers. In the content delivery world, there is no substitute. I leave you all with this question (and let's be honest): How addictive is your content?
BY Robert M. Sacks
Bob Sacks is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international industry e-newsletter, "Heard on the Web." Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.
America's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993
www.bosacks.com
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
- Jules de Gaultier
.............From the General Publication News Files...............
A Publisher's Secret Weapon
In the era of Internet publishing wars, make sure you are armed to the teeth.
By Bob Sacks
http://www.printmediamag.com/doc/285326705756851.bsp
What good is a balloon with no air to fill it? What good is a rocket without the fuel to propel it? Of course, they are no good at all. They all have interesting potential, but that is all.
The same holds true for the Internet. The Internet is nothing but a tool. You can't hold it or see it, at least not without the secret weapon that publishers have. It is, for all intents and purposes, as empty or as dumb as a rock.
What do people do on the Internet? They can basically do one of three things: They can hear, they can see, and they can read. All the Internet really does is act as the freight train for information. It is strictly a vehicle for the distribution of electrons. There is nothing else that the Internet does.
It is publishers who possess the secret weapon that give the Internet its appeal. It is publishers who use this oft-forgotten secret weapon who will prosper in the coming Internet wars. But let's call the secret weapon by its other not-so-secret name. It is content that will rule the freight trains and fill the cars with information distilled down to electrons for global distribution.
The publisher is empowered to place that content on paper with ink, on the Internet with pixels, or beamed to a PDA, cell phone, or even a sheet of e-paper by wireless connection. The delivery method is and should be totally irrelevant to both the publisher and the consumer. With the only possible exception that electronic information distribution is by far the fastest and least expensive.
Now, each consumer has a different reading comfort level. That is OK, we can deliver exactly what they want, when and how they want it. The most important thing to remember is that successful publishers have exactly what the public wants. Content, in the multi-varied form of facts, fiction and gossip, all distilled down to one "word" information. That is what the Internet is all about. Getting information. Everything else that is going on is a distraction or a subset of getting information.
And at the end of the day, what is it that publishers have in abundance? Information. The better the information, the more the public will be willing to pay for it.
So we have nothing to fear as an industry, for we are content. The rest is simply a matter of having information good enough to charge for and the mundane task of distributing it.
THE SECRET TO GREAT CONTENT
That being said, the trick is to have the unique and specific content that readers must have. The only way to achieve that is with great editors and writers.
This, my friends, is often overlooked by bean counters and bottom-line publishers. Any publishing house can get hack writers or dispassionate editors. They can, and they do. That is the clear path to diminishing readers and diminishing returns, especially in this era of content glut.
But the smart publisher that invests in great edit is planting seeds into the Ethernet that will sprout readers clamoring for more, willing to pay the piper for the jewels of addictive content.
Giving the editor the power to get the brightest minds and set up an infrastructure of intriguing, addictive, thoughtful wordmanship—that is investing. Giving the editor the support of a competent staff—that is investing. Creating a tangible atmosphere in the industry that you are the very best, the most knowledgeable, most articulate, most visionary publishers—that is investing.
There is no known cure for addictive content. And the only way to get it is to have great editors and really compelling writers. In the content delivery world, there is no substitute. I leave you all with this question (and let's be honest): How addictive is your content?
BY Robert M. Sacks
Bob Sacks is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international industry e-newsletter, "Heard on the Web." Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.
Upscale parenting magazines discover eager advertisers
Upscale parenting magazines discover eager advertisers
By Theresa Howard, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — The magazine business is having an upscale baby boom. Two new arrivals are parenting magazines Cookie and Wondertime.
The parenting magazine niche is looking attractive because industry veterans Child, Parents and Parenting grew ad pages 20% from 2002 to 2005, while ad pages industrywide were up just 8% for that period, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.
The latest entries are aiming beyond the soccer mom to the yoga mommy — aiming for parents who not only want to be smart about child-development trends, but also are willing to pay a premium for their kids to look smart with the latest fashions and gear.
The upscale kids market is expected to reach nearly $30 billion from sales of apparel, furnishings and accessories, according to research firm Packaged Facts.
That spending power is attracting advertisers, many new to this magazine category, from marketers of cars and watches to kiddie apparel, including such brands as Gucci and Burberry.
"Advertisers want to reach parents who are more style- and destination-conscious," says Eva Dillon, publisher of Cookie, which beat its advertising goals for the premiere issue, which came out in November, by 20%.
Among brands helping it drive past the goal was Cadillac with an ad for its pricey SRX crossover SUV. And the GM luxury brand returned to run the ad again in Cookie's second issue (one of six planned for 2006). The copy: "Not all housewives are desperate."
"(The SRX) is the closest thing we have to the modern-day station wagon," says Kevin Smith, Cadillac spokesman. "A station wagon still has some level of stigma. It's not cool to drive a station wagon. It's cooler to drive an SUV or an SUV-like vehicle."
The newcomers are not the only titles with new views on parenting magazines. The category vets have been revamping their publications in the past several years.
Category leader Parenting started to research in 2002 what women wanted in parenting magazines, says Jeff Wellington, vice president and group publisher. The answer, he says, was content that felt more like Vogue and Elle, magazines they read before having children.
"It's not just the mommy category," Wellington says. "It's the woman's category that happens to have children, too. That's why a lot of new magazines are coming in." Parenting will try to defend its strong ad page growth, up 34% since 2002.
Family marketer Walt Disney wants in on the action, too, and recently launched Wondertime, with a focus on learning. The first issue, on sale now, includes an article on teaching your child how to climb a tree. The magazine, now selling ads for its second issue, surpassed its ad goal for the first.
Glenn Rosenbloom, senior vice president and group publisher, says the parenting category is "vibrant."
"We've gotten a great response from advertisers across the board," he says. "Marketers realize that parents, when they become parents, are entering a whole new life stage, and there are an awful lot of products and services they need."
Is there enough advertising to go around? Maybe not, says Bob Mate, executive vice president and publishing director of Meredith, which produces the magazines Child and Parents.
"Just because someone comes out with a new magazine doesn't mean a manufacturer is going to increase their budget," he says. "The pie may not be growing as fast as the number of titles out there."
By Theresa Howard, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — The magazine business is having an upscale baby boom. Two new arrivals are parenting magazines Cookie and Wondertime.
The parenting magazine niche is looking attractive because industry veterans Child, Parents and Parenting grew ad pages 20% from 2002 to 2005, while ad pages industrywide were up just 8% for that period, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.
The latest entries are aiming beyond the soccer mom to the yoga mommy — aiming for parents who not only want to be smart about child-development trends, but also are willing to pay a premium for their kids to look smart with the latest fashions and gear.
The upscale kids market is expected to reach nearly $30 billion from sales of apparel, furnishings and accessories, according to research firm Packaged Facts.
That spending power is attracting advertisers, many new to this magazine category, from marketers of cars and watches to kiddie apparel, including such brands as Gucci and Burberry.
"Advertisers want to reach parents who are more style- and destination-conscious," says Eva Dillon, publisher of Cookie, which beat its advertising goals for the premiere issue, which came out in November, by 20%.
Among brands helping it drive past the goal was Cadillac with an ad for its pricey SRX crossover SUV. And the GM luxury brand returned to run the ad again in Cookie's second issue (one of six planned for 2006). The copy: "Not all housewives are desperate."
"(The SRX) is the closest thing we have to the modern-day station wagon," says Kevin Smith, Cadillac spokesman. "A station wagon still has some level of stigma. It's not cool to drive a station wagon. It's cooler to drive an SUV or an SUV-like vehicle."
The newcomers are not the only titles with new views on parenting magazines. The category vets have been revamping their publications in the past several years.
Category leader Parenting started to research in 2002 what women wanted in parenting magazines, says Jeff Wellington, vice president and group publisher. The answer, he says, was content that felt more like Vogue and Elle, magazines they read before having children.
"It's not just the mommy category," Wellington says. "It's the woman's category that happens to have children, too. That's why a lot of new magazines are coming in." Parenting will try to defend its strong ad page growth, up 34% since 2002.
Family marketer Walt Disney wants in on the action, too, and recently launched Wondertime, with a focus on learning. The first issue, on sale now, includes an article on teaching your child how to climb a tree. The magazine, now selling ads for its second issue, surpassed its ad goal for the first.
Glenn Rosenbloom, senior vice president and group publisher, says the parenting category is "vibrant."
"We've gotten a great response from advertisers across the board," he says. "Marketers realize that parents, when they become parents, are entering a whole new life stage, and there are an awful lot of products and services they need."
Is there enough advertising to go around? Maybe not, says Bob Mate, executive vice president and publishing director of Meredith, which produces the magazines Child and Parents.
"Just because someone comes out with a new magazine doesn't mean a manufacturer is going to increase their budget," he says. "The pie may not be growing as fast as the number of titles out there."
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Regarding mail & new distribution in gulf states
where is USPS holding mail
how are publishers being notified
what are wholesalers reporting
what are print vendors planning for assembled co-mail pools addressed or mailed
how will ABC count books not delivered
what are publishers' fulfillment plans for subs in this region
how are publishers being notified
what are wholesalers reporting
what are print vendors planning for assembled co-mail pools addressed or mailed
how will ABC count books not delivered
what are publishers' fulfillment plans for subs in this region
Friday, August 19, 2005
Who's Heavier, Florio or September Vogue?
Who's Heavier, Florio or September Vogue?
You Can't Lift Either!
By Gabriel Sherman
http://www.nyobserver.com/media_offtherecord.asp
The Vogue was big. It rested heavily on a low-slung glass coffee table in publisher Tom Florio’s office—a magazine with the girth of a Yellow Pages. But it was not, by its own admission, the biggest.
Billing itself at “800 Pages” (though paginated to 802), the upcoming September Vogue falls shy of last year’s 832-page performance. The ritual “Biggest Issue Ever!” cover line is absent. Still, Mr. Florio had bigger things to count than pages.
“How do I feel about it?” Mr. Florio asked. “I feel good about it.” He eased forward in his leather armchair and picked it up, savoring the heft.
The 2005 September issue, Mr. Florio said, “has brought in more revenue for a monthly magazine than probably any magazine ever published in the world—since the cavemen.”
The cavemen, or other literal-minded folk, might be confused by the publisher’s definition of “magazine”: The $2 million revenue increase that Mr. Florio is reporting to the Publisher’s Information Bureau includes some money from Men’s Vogue, which will make its newsstand debut—still, officially, as a test product—in September, with its older sister as chaperone.
The bookkeeping fits with Mr. Florio’s concept of Vogue: a brand that can’t be contained by two covers, even when those covers are 1 1/8 inches apart. Hence the second publication on Mr. Florio’s coffee table: a Vogue marketing brochure, cut bigger than a tabloid newspaper, with a translucent bluish-white plastic cover.
The lush pages feature trippy, larger-than-Vogue versions of iconic Vogue photographs—including Annie Leibovitz’s December 2003 Wonderland shoot, with John Galliano as the mad Queen of Hearts to Natalia Vodianova’s flamingo-toting Alice. They also contain Mr. Florio’s blueprint for transforming Vogue from a women’s fashion title to “a world of experiences,” encompassing “dynamic multi-media platforms.”
The brochure touts, among other offerings, the Vogue documentary, Seamless, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April; plans for a theatrical release are ongoing. There’s also the Shopvogue.com Web site—roll over the ads and click to buy!—the syndicated television programming available in 78 million homes, the party planning group, the data-mining initiatives, and the in-house advertising studio for clients such as Bergdorf Goodman, Cartier and Cointreau (“campaigns … that pair unique ideas with the same incredible photographers and stylists who distinguish our editorial pages”).
And—oh, yeah—there are the magazines: Men’s Vogue, Teen Vogue and, if Mr. Florio has his way, Vogue Living sometime next year. And naturally, beyond and beneath it all, holding up the edifice: Anna Wintour’s Vogue, also known around headquarters as “Big Vogue.”
Even if it’s the teensiest bit not so big—or at least not so Biggest! From January through July, Vogue’s ad pages were down 2.5 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.
As a stainless-steel coffee maker gurgled in the corner of his 12th-floor corner office, Mr. Florio made his case for alternative measures. “I have a file in my drawer, I could throw down every fashion magazine and show you what people are paying in their March issue,” he said. “And their discounts are between 68 and 80 percent to buy ads in these other magazines. What’s $150,000 in Vogue is literally $16,500 in another magazine …. I don’t look at their ads. They’re just giving away ads. The whole idea of tracking ads is absurd today because they don’t mean anything.”
Rival publishers disputed Mr. Florio’s claims of widespread cut-rate advertising. “We don’t discount,” said Stephanie George, president of In Style. “We work for a very big company called Time Inc., and they don’t need me to do that.”
Still, this year, Vogue raised its rate base—the circulation guaranteed to advertisers—to 1.2 million. “I get paid, and everyone who works for me gets paid, on revenue,” Mr. Florio said. “Not pages.”
For all his interest in the multimedia future, Mr. Florio is something of an atavistic figure: the last of a certain breed of Condé Nast publisher. Of the three “Italian Guys”—Mr. Florio, his brother Steven and “Mr. Big” Ron Galotti—who lunched annually at Da Silvano in Decembers throughout 90’s, Tom Florio is the only one still holding an active day-to-day position in the company.
His hot-blooded older brother stepped down as Condé Nast C.E.O. in January 2004; Mr. Galotti, the Vogue publisher from 1994 to 1998, retreated in March 2004 to a 100-acre farm in North Pomfret, Vt.
But the younger Mr. Florio was still in his 4 Times Square offices. His reaction to middle age, he said, has been to train for a 70-mile half Ironman triathlon scheduled for October. A slate-gray suit hugged his taut frame. “I like my wife, so I don’t want a 20-year-old girlfriend,” he said. “It’s much cheaper than a Porsche, and you end up looking a lot cuter in the end.”
Low-speed endurance training, he said, takes adjustment. “If you’re used to racing,” Mr. Florio said, “it’s a pain in the ass to go slow.”
He continued: “When I’m in the park on my bike and someone passes me, it’s like, ‘I’ll kill you!’ Like yesterday I was in the Park and I rode about 25 miles, and I was doing this low-heart-zone thing. And this guy passes me, and I’m like—I saw him on the back hill, and I was like, ‘You know what? I just got to kick his ass on the hill.’
“So I came from behind him, and I was like, Vrrrrrrum! And then I went back into my low heart rate.”
such is restraint, Florio-style.
“Tom’s the last little bit of [that generation],” Mr. Galotti said. “The reality is, there’s been a change in the company. Condé Nast went from a business that was run on superficial success to one that’s operated more on real financial success.”
Under his hard-charging brother, Tom Florio was widely seen as being on the losing end of an asymmetric sibling rivalry—leading to his highly public transfer from the president’s seat at The New Yorker back to his former position as publisher of Condé Nast Traveler. Mr. Florio, however, denied that interpretation. “Believe me,” he said, “[Steven] had nothing to do with me moving in and out of The New Yorker, because I reported directly to Si [Newhouse].”
Yet answering to Steven Florio, he said, did mean that he “scaled back a little bit my kind of prima-donna thing, which I was a little more comfortable with before he was there. You know, it’s a lose-lose situation. It’s like, he would say no to everything, where before he was here, everybody said yes to me.”
Mr. Florio downplayed the idea of a cultural change at 4 Times Square. “I’ve been here since 1983 and I’ve been a publisher for a good amount of that time,” he said. “Si is as involved as he’s always been—the company is bigger, is what’s different. It’s not that he’s not involved. There were how many magazines then, seven? Today there’s 20-something …. Believe me, when we sit down and talk to Mr. Newhouse, and talk about a creative idea or a business idea, there’s not a question he doesn’t think to ask that’s like, you better be on game.”
And in the present climate, Mr. Florio’s own role is evolving. He is drawing up staffing plans for a Men’s Vogue business department apart from Big Vogue’s. The test issue is fat with premium advertising. “We have Hinckley Yachts,” Mr. Florio said, “and we have [Ralph Lauren] Purple Label, and $1,400 single-malt scotch …. We have brands that don’t advertise. We did 164 pages—when the budget was 70, right?”
If the newsstand sales are comparably strong, Mr. Florio plans to bring on a publisher for the men’s title. He declined to say whether that would move him into a group-publisher position overseeing the entire Vogue family. At present, the two-year-old Teen Vogue is under publisher and V.P. Gina Sanders—the wife of Si Newhouse’s nephew Steven Newhouse, a leading candidate to succeed Mr. Newhouse when he eventually retires.
“There are a lot of options right now,” Mr. Florio said. “I think Teen Vogue is doing just fine. We haven’t made any decisions about if Men’s Vogue would become part of a group situation or not. This is all in discussion right now. We’ll make decisions based on what’s best for the brand and what’s best for the company.”
And what’s best for the brand, in Mr. Florio’s estimation, is to get beyond that glossy 800-page annual monument. The inspiration, in part, was In Style—the only fashion magazine, Mr. Florio said, to rival Vogue’s ad-page count.
“And the only reason In Style gets up there,” he said, “is because of all their supplements—which they do brilliantly. I am not putting them down.
“If anything,” he continued, “it made us think, ‘Wait a minute, our brand is pretty damn important. Maybe [we] should extend our brand and get into that business.’”
In Style? Somewhere, under an immaculately tasteful headstone, one could almost hear Diana Vreeland spinning like a gyroscope. Attention, ladies: In Style is the new Vogue?
Not at all, according to Mr. Florio. Citing Malcolm Gladwell and tipping-point theory, he described his theory of Vogue’s role—as “a brand that has both change agents and masses reading it.”
Most magazines, he said, have one or the other class. “In Style doesn’t have change agents, they have masses,” he said. “Vanity Fair has change agents …. In Vogue, you have the fashion elite, the society elite, as well as that woman out there in Minneapolis who might go to H and M or whatever.”
And so you have a brand capable of expanding into a multidimensional experience. “One of the things about Vogue and the Vogue brand,” Mr. Florio said, “we’re as active off the page, in the design studio, consulting the C.E.O. who the next designer should be, as we are on the page. Actually, we’re more. I call Anna the McKinsey of fashion, because she is like McKinsey in the way she advises people.”
McKinsey? Is that whizzing noise Ms. Vreeland again?
The consulting work, Mr. Florio said, “was about what we do. It was about our taste and our style.”
“The limits of the Vogue brand,” Mr. Florio said, “will be dictated by our taste.”
You Can't Lift Either!
By Gabriel Sherman
http://www.nyobserver.com/media_offtherecord.asp
The Vogue was big. It rested heavily on a low-slung glass coffee table in publisher Tom Florio’s office—a magazine with the girth of a Yellow Pages. But it was not, by its own admission, the biggest.
Billing itself at “800 Pages” (though paginated to 802), the upcoming September Vogue falls shy of last year’s 832-page performance. The ritual “Biggest Issue Ever!” cover line is absent. Still, Mr. Florio had bigger things to count than pages.
“How do I feel about it?” Mr. Florio asked. “I feel good about it.” He eased forward in his leather armchair and picked it up, savoring the heft.
The 2005 September issue, Mr. Florio said, “has brought in more revenue for a monthly magazine than probably any magazine ever published in the world—since the cavemen.”
The cavemen, or other literal-minded folk, might be confused by the publisher’s definition of “magazine”: The $2 million revenue increase that Mr. Florio is reporting to the Publisher’s Information Bureau includes some money from Men’s Vogue, which will make its newsstand debut—still, officially, as a test product—in September, with its older sister as chaperone.
The bookkeeping fits with Mr. Florio’s concept of Vogue: a brand that can’t be contained by two covers, even when those covers are 1 1/8 inches apart. Hence the second publication on Mr. Florio’s coffee table: a Vogue marketing brochure, cut bigger than a tabloid newspaper, with a translucent bluish-white plastic cover.
The lush pages feature trippy, larger-than-Vogue versions of iconic Vogue photographs—including Annie Leibovitz’s December 2003 Wonderland shoot, with John Galliano as the mad Queen of Hearts to Natalia Vodianova’s flamingo-toting Alice. They also contain Mr. Florio’s blueprint for transforming Vogue from a women’s fashion title to “a world of experiences,” encompassing “dynamic multi-media platforms.”
The brochure touts, among other offerings, the Vogue documentary, Seamless, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April; plans for a theatrical release are ongoing. There’s also the Shopvogue.com Web site—roll over the ads and click to buy!—the syndicated television programming available in 78 million homes, the party planning group, the data-mining initiatives, and the in-house advertising studio for clients such as Bergdorf Goodman, Cartier and Cointreau (“campaigns … that pair unique ideas with the same incredible photographers and stylists who distinguish our editorial pages”).
And—oh, yeah—there are the magazines: Men’s Vogue, Teen Vogue and, if Mr. Florio has his way, Vogue Living sometime next year. And naturally, beyond and beneath it all, holding up the edifice: Anna Wintour’s Vogue, also known around headquarters as “Big Vogue.”
Even if it’s the teensiest bit not so big—or at least not so Biggest! From January through July, Vogue’s ad pages were down 2.5 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.
As a stainless-steel coffee maker gurgled in the corner of his 12th-floor corner office, Mr. Florio made his case for alternative measures. “I have a file in my drawer, I could throw down every fashion magazine and show you what people are paying in their March issue,” he said. “And their discounts are between 68 and 80 percent to buy ads in these other magazines. What’s $150,000 in Vogue is literally $16,500 in another magazine …. I don’t look at their ads. They’re just giving away ads. The whole idea of tracking ads is absurd today because they don’t mean anything.”
Rival publishers disputed Mr. Florio’s claims of widespread cut-rate advertising. “We don’t discount,” said Stephanie George, president of In Style. “We work for a very big company called Time Inc., and they don’t need me to do that.”
Still, this year, Vogue raised its rate base—the circulation guaranteed to advertisers—to 1.2 million. “I get paid, and everyone who works for me gets paid, on revenue,” Mr. Florio said. “Not pages.”
For all his interest in the multimedia future, Mr. Florio is something of an atavistic figure: the last of a certain breed of Condé Nast publisher. Of the three “Italian Guys”—Mr. Florio, his brother Steven and “Mr. Big” Ron Galotti—who lunched annually at Da Silvano in Decembers throughout 90’s, Tom Florio is the only one still holding an active day-to-day position in the company.
His hot-blooded older brother stepped down as Condé Nast C.E.O. in January 2004; Mr. Galotti, the Vogue publisher from 1994 to 1998, retreated in March 2004 to a 100-acre farm in North Pomfret, Vt.
But the younger Mr. Florio was still in his 4 Times Square offices. His reaction to middle age, he said, has been to train for a 70-mile half Ironman triathlon scheduled for October. A slate-gray suit hugged his taut frame. “I like my wife, so I don’t want a 20-year-old girlfriend,” he said. “It’s much cheaper than a Porsche, and you end up looking a lot cuter in the end.”
Low-speed endurance training, he said, takes adjustment. “If you’re used to racing,” Mr. Florio said, “it’s a pain in the ass to go slow.”
He continued: “When I’m in the park on my bike and someone passes me, it’s like, ‘I’ll kill you!’ Like yesterday I was in the Park and I rode about 25 miles, and I was doing this low-heart-zone thing. And this guy passes me, and I’m like—I saw him on the back hill, and I was like, ‘You know what? I just got to kick his ass on the hill.’
“So I came from behind him, and I was like, Vrrrrrrum! And then I went back into my low heart rate.”
such is restraint, Florio-style.
“Tom’s the last little bit of [that generation],” Mr. Galotti said. “The reality is, there’s been a change in the company. Condé Nast went from a business that was run on superficial success to one that’s operated more on real financial success.”
Under his hard-charging brother, Tom Florio was widely seen as being on the losing end of an asymmetric sibling rivalry—leading to his highly public transfer from the president’s seat at The New Yorker back to his former position as publisher of Condé Nast Traveler. Mr. Florio, however, denied that interpretation. “Believe me,” he said, “[Steven] had nothing to do with me moving in and out of The New Yorker, because I reported directly to Si [Newhouse].”
Yet answering to Steven Florio, he said, did mean that he “scaled back a little bit my kind of prima-donna thing, which I was a little more comfortable with before he was there. You know, it’s a lose-lose situation. It’s like, he would say no to everything, where before he was here, everybody said yes to me.”
Mr. Florio downplayed the idea of a cultural change at 4 Times Square. “I’ve been here since 1983 and I’ve been a publisher for a good amount of that time,” he said. “Si is as involved as he’s always been—the company is bigger, is what’s different. It’s not that he’s not involved. There were how many magazines then, seven? Today there’s 20-something …. Believe me, when we sit down and talk to Mr. Newhouse, and talk about a creative idea or a business idea, there’s not a question he doesn’t think to ask that’s like, you better be on game.”
And in the present climate, Mr. Florio’s own role is evolving. He is drawing up staffing plans for a Men’s Vogue business department apart from Big Vogue’s. The test issue is fat with premium advertising. “We have Hinckley Yachts,” Mr. Florio said, “and we have [Ralph Lauren] Purple Label, and $1,400 single-malt scotch …. We have brands that don’t advertise. We did 164 pages—when the budget was 70, right?”
If the newsstand sales are comparably strong, Mr. Florio plans to bring on a publisher for the men’s title. He declined to say whether that would move him into a group-publisher position overseeing the entire Vogue family. At present, the two-year-old Teen Vogue is under publisher and V.P. Gina Sanders—the wife of Si Newhouse’s nephew Steven Newhouse, a leading candidate to succeed Mr. Newhouse when he eventually retires.
“There are a lot of options right now,” Mr. Florio said. “I think Teen Vogue is doing just fine. We haven’t made any decisions about if Men’s Vogue would become part of a group situation or not. This is all in discussion right now. We’ll make decisions based on what’s best for the brand and what’s best for the company.”
And what’s best for the brand, in Mr. Florio’s estimation, is to get beyond that glossy 800-page annual monument. The inspiration, in part, was In Style—the only fashion magazine, Mr. Florio said, to rival Vogue’s ad-page count.
“And the only reason In Style gets up there,” he said, “is because of all their supplements—which they do brilliantly. I am not putting them down.
“If anything,” he continued, “it made us think, ‘Wait a minute, our brand is pretty damn important. Maybe [we] should extend our brand and get into that business.’”
In Style? Somewhere, under an immaculately tasteful headstone, one could almost hear Diana Vreeland spinning like a gyroscope. Attention, ladies: In Style is the new Vogue?
Not at all, according to Mr. Florio. Citing Malcolm Gladwell and tipping-point theory, he described his theory of Vogue’s role—as “a brand that has both change agents and masses reading it.”
Most magazines, he said, have one or the other class. “In Style doesn’t have change agents, they have masses,” he said. “Vanity Fair has change agents …. In Vogue, you have the fashion elite, the society elite, as well as that woman out there in Minneapolis who might go to H and M or whatever.”
And so you have a brand capable of expanding into a multidimensional experience. “One of the things about Vogue and the Vogue brand,” Mr. Florio said, “we’re as active off the page, in the design studio, consulting the C.E.O. who the next designer should be, as we are on the page. Actually, we’re more. I call Anna the McKinsey of fashion, because she is like McKinsey in the way she advises people.”
McKinsey? Is that whizzing noise Ms. Vreeland again?
The consulting work, Mr. Florio said, “was about what we do. It was about our taste and our style.”
“The limits of the Vogue brand,” Mr. Florio said, “will be dictated by our taste.”
Thursday, July 28, 2005
E-paper: future of RFID, intelligent packaging?
A prototype of electronic-paper could be the future for radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and for intelligent packaging, according to the company developing the technology.
UK-based Plastic Logic says it has developed a a paper-like material whose display properties change when a voltage is applied. The technology is being built to be used for electronic books, electronic maps and electronic newspapers. The technology can also be used for sensors, labels, RFID tags, intelligent packaging and disposable electronic gadgets.
A number of companies have been attempting to develop electronic "ink" and electronic flexible displays for years. Such technology has the potential to radically change the publishing, display, packaging, ink and label industries.
Electronic ink, when used in conjunction with flexible plastic display technology would have the ability to change according to imbedded instructions. For example a simple food label would be able to carry a wider variety of information than is currently available using the same-sized paper version. Readers would be able to scroll through information on an e-label.
Flexible displays would also be foldable, allowing them to be easily put in a pocket or bag. Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC), Lucent and E Ink are also working on versions of the technology.
In the UK Plastic Logic is currently spearheading manufacturing development on a €23m EU project to develop plastic electronics that is thin, flexible and low-cost.
The project aims to exploit polymer electronics to enable a new generation of low-cost ‘thinking’ devices that interact with their environment and communicate with people. Such sensors could have the ability to be used on "intelligent" packaging, which would warn people when food has perished, according to the project description.
Plastic Logic is also working with twenty partners on the EU's €26m Flexidis project. One section of the project is developing organic light-emitting diode displays. Another section is developing flexible electronic-paper displays, which might be used for labels or as RFID devices.
The key is to bring down the cost of RFID, a technology which is currently being used as a tool to track individual products as they are packaged and shipped.
The high cost of RFID chips is one factor cited as a major barrier to the wider introduction of the technology.
In May, Plastic Logic announced the opening of a new prototyping facility in Cambridge to produce active-matrix backplanes for flexible e-reader displays. The prototype line can fabricate up to 100 A5-sized panels a week. Each has 100dpi to 150dpi resolution and can be bended. The company says it expects to produce colour displays with 100dpi resolution next year.
The company uses a low temperature process, which brings down the cost of the devices. Plastic Logic was established in November 2000, as a spin-off from Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory.
UK-based Plastic Logic says it has developed a a paper-like material whose display properties change when a voltage is applied. The technology is being built to be used for electronic books, electronic maps and electronic newspapers. The technology can also be used for sensors, labels, RFID tags, intelligent packaging and disposable electronic gadgets.
A number of companies have been attempting to develop electronic "ink" and electronic flexible displays for years. Such technology has the potential to radically change the publishing, display, packaging, ink and label industries.
Electronic ink, when used in conjunction with flexible plastic display technology would have the ability to change according to imbedded instructions. For example a simple food label would be able to carry a wider variety of information than is currently available using the same-sized paper version. Readers would be able to scroll through information on an e-label.
Flexible displays would also be foldable, allowing them to be easily put in a pocket or bag. Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC), Lucent and E Ink are also working on versions of the technology.
In the UK Plastic Logic is currently spearheading manufacturing development on a €23m EU project to develop plastic electronics that is thin, flexible and low-cost.
The project aims to exploit polymer electronics to enable a new generation of low-cost ‘thinking’ devices that interact with their environment and communicate with people. Such sensors could have the ability to be used on "intelligent" packaging, which would warn people when food has perished, according to the project description.
Plastic Logic is also working with twenty partners on the EU's €26m Flexidis project. One section of the project is developing organic light-emitting diode displays. Another section is developing flexible electronic-paper displays, which might be used for labels or as RFID devices.
The key is to bring down the cost of RFID, a technology which is currently being used as a tool to track individual products as they are packaged and shipped.
The high cost of RFID chips is one factor cited as a major barrier to the wider introduction of the technology.
In May, Plastic Logic announced the opening of a new prototyping facility in Cambridge to produce active-matrix backplanes for flexible e-reader displays. The prototype line can fabricate up to 100 A5-sized panels a week. Each has 100dpi to 150dpi resolution and can be bended. The company says it expects to produce colour displays with 100dpi resolution next year.
The company uses a low temperature process, which brings down the cost of the devices. Plastic Logic was established in November 2000, as a spin-off from Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
DESCRIBING TRADITIONAL MEDIA AS BEING
As Ad Spend Grows 'Tepid,' Agencies Grow Neutral, Less Dependent On Traditional Media
by Joe Mandese
DESCRIBING TRADITIONAL MEDIA AS BEING "under siege," a top Wall Street firm issued a report Wednesday suggesting that major ad agencies have finally reached the point of "neutrality" - meaning they are no longer depending on traditional media like television for their profits and cash flow. The big change, wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine, has been the shift from media commissions to fee-based compensation by major marketers, as well as the rapid acceleration of new media and marketing services. "There is no question that marketing services businesses are growing more rapidly as large marketers are questioning the return on traditional advertising," said Fine, noting agencies now "participate equally in both sectors and [are] relatively indifferent to how a client chooses to spend."
Fine hinted there still is tremendous upside for Madison Avenue among digital media, especially the online search marketplace, as most agencies "are not fully participating in the migration to online search but they do have decent representation in other Internet based activities."
Last week, Carat CEO David Verklin revealed a major push by the media agency into search, citing recent acquisitions such as iProspect, and a fundamental shift in the media planning structure of the Aegis Group unit. Verklin said Carat soon plans to make search a component of every media plan developed by the agency for its clients.
Meanwhile, Merrill Lynch's Fine makes a compelling case for traditional media indeed being under siege, and portrays a frenzy on Madison Avenue as agencies strive to develop branded entertainment, sponsored video-on-demand and other new, non-linear media opportunities.
"Local television is feeling intense pressure from local cable as local interconnects is making that medium easier to buy. Newspapers are visibly losing share to other mediums as circulation volume continues to decline at an accelerated pace. The radio industry has self-inflicted wounds that appear to be healing, but now faces threats from satellite radio and the rapid penetration of iPods," she cautioned, nonetheless offering a "positive note," pointing at that local cable, cable networks and the Internet are also "on the rise."
"Internet-based advertising, branded and search represented an estimated 3.6% of U.S. advertising in 2004 or $9.6 billion and is forecasted to exceed 7% of the total by 2009."
Despite that contribution, Fine once again revised Merrill Lynch's ad outlook downward, describing the U.S. ad cycle as "relatively tepid."
Merrill Lynch now expects U.S. ad spending to rise only 4.5 percent in 2005, down from a previous forecast of 4.9 percent. The biggest corrections were due to print media, with magazine ad growth dropping to 4.0 percent from 5.0 percent, and newspaper spending declining to 3.3 percent from 4.0 percent. The picture also darkened slightly for broadcast TV, the only medium projected to decline in 2005. Instead of losing 1.4 percent, Merrill Lynch now expects broadcast TV ad spending to fall by 1.5 percent this year.
Editor, MediaPost
by Joe Mandese
DESCRIBING TRADITIONAL MEDIA AS BEING "under siege," a top Wall Street firm issued a report Wednesday suggesting that major ad agencies have finally reached the point of "neutrality" - meaning they are no longer depending on traditional media like television for their profits and cash flow. The big change, wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine, has been the shift from media commissions to fee-based compensation by major marketers, as well as the rapid acceleration of new media and marketing services. "There is no question that marketing services businesses are growing more rapidly as large marketers are questioning the return on traditional advertising," said Fine, noting agencies now "participate equally in both sectors and [are] relatively indifferent to how a client chooses to spend."
Fine hinted there still is tremendous upside for Madison Avenue among digital media, especially the online search marketplace, as most agencies "are not fully participating in the migration to online search but they do have decent representation in other Internet based activities."
Last week, Carat CEO David Verklin revealed a major push by the media agency into search, citing recent acquisitions such as iProspect, and a fundamental shift in the media planning structure of the Aegis Group unit. Verklin said Carat soon plans to make search a component of every media plan developed by the agency for its clients.
Meanwhile, Merrill Lynch's Fine makes a compelling case for traditional media indeed being under siege, and portrays a frenzy on Madison Avenue as agencies strive to develop branded entertainment, sponsored video-on-demand and other new, non-linear media opportunities.
"Local television is feeling intense pressure from local cable as local interconnects is making that medium easier to buy. Newspapers are visibly losing share to other mediums as circulation volume continues to decline at an accelerated pace. The radio industry has self-inflicted wounds that appear to be healing, but now faces threats from satellite radio and the rapid penetration of iPods," she cautioned, nonetheless offering a "positive note," pointing at that local cable, cable networks and the Internet are also "on the rise."
"Internet-based advertising, branded and search represented an estimated 3.6% of U.S. advertising in 2004 or $9.6 billion and is forecasted to exceed 7% of the total by 2009."
Despite that contribution, Fine once again revised Merrill Lynch's ad outlook downward, describing the U.S. ad cycle as "relatively tepid."
Merrill Lynch now expects U.S. ad spending to rise only 4.5 percent in 2005, down from a previous forecast of 4.9 percent. The biggest corrections were due to print media, with magazine ad growth dropping to 4.0 percent from 5.0 percent, and newspaper spending declining to 3.3 percent from 4.0 percent. The picture also darkened slightly for broadcast TV, the only medium projected to decline in 2005. Instead of losing 1.4 percent, Merrill Lynch now expects broadcast TV ad spending to fall by 1.5 percent this year.
Editor, MediaPost
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
PR Vs. Advertising: This Time, It's Personal
PR Vs. Advertising: This Time, It's Personal
by Joe Mandese, Tuesday, Jun 14, 2005 7:30 AM EST
THE PUBLIC RELATIONS INDUSTRY, NOT advertising agencies, appears to be taking the lead on the burgeoning marketplace of so-called "personalized media." Ketchum, the giant public relations division of Omnicom, late Monday unveiled Ketchum Personalized Media, a new unit focused on "how, why and when" to integrate personalized media strategies into marketing communications plans. Ketchum is not the first PR firm to do so - Cooper Katz recently launched what it's calling a "Micro Persuasion" practice - but it is by far the largest so far.
Unlike traditional mass media communications, the micro media marketplace focuses on new forms of personalized, or consumer generated media such as blogs (Web logs), podcasts, RSS (really simple syndication) and new mobile marketing applications in which individuals transmit media content directly to a few or many end-users.
While most major ad agencies have begun tracking the rapidly growing field, none of yet formed a dedicated practice devoted to developing and exploiting what many believe could be the future of marketing communications.
"A lot of conflicting information and anxiety exist about how to incorporate these new online technologies into 'traditional' communications programs," said Paul Rand, a Ketchum Partner, Chicago Managing Director, and co-leader of the development team that oversees the new unit, which will draw on the firm's eKetchum Digital Media Group, as well as PR and technology offices worldwide. Ketchum executives said a global perspective is essential for understanding the personalized media marketplace, because technologies evolve differently in different markets. For example, the firm said the U.S. is "six to 18-months behind" Europe and Asia in terms of new mobile marketing techniques such as Short Message Service (SMS), text-based messaging that has proven to be an especially viral way of spreading word-of-mouth in overseas markets. Perhaps the best example of SMS used on a wide scale in the U.S. was the high-profile phone-in-vote campaigns utilized by Fox's "American Idol" series.
A number of top media agencies have begun tracking and analyzing the personalized media marketplace, and are initiating programs to capitalize on it, but the PR industry appears to be developing it as a dedicated marketing services practice.
Editor, MediaPost
by Joe Mandese, Tuesday, Jun 14, 2005 7:30 AM EST
THE PUBLIC RELATIONS INDUSTRY, NOT advertising agencies, appears to be taking the lead on the burgeoning marketplace of so-called "personalized media." Ketchum, the giant public relations division of Omnicom, late Monday unveiled Ketchum Personalized Media, a new unit focused on "how, why and when" to integrate personalized media strategies into marketing communications plans. Ketchum is not the first PR firm to do so - Cooper Katz recently launched what it's calling a "Micro Persuasion" practice - but it is by far the largest so far.
Unlike traditional mass media communications, the micro media marketplace focuses on new forms of personalized, or consumer generated media such as blogs (Web logs), podcasts, RSS (really simple syndication) and new mobile marketing applications in which individuals transmit media content directly to a few or many end-users.
While most major ad agencies have begun tracking the rapidly growing field, none of yet formed a dedicated practice devoted to developing and exploiting what many believe could be the future of marketing communications.
"A lot of conflicting information and anxiety exist about how to incorporate these new online technologies into 'traditional' communications programs," said Paul Rand, a Ketchum Partner, Chicago Managing Director, and co-leader of the development team that oversees the new unit, which will draw on the firm's eKetchum Digital Media Group, as well as PR and technology offices worldwide. Ketchum executives said a global perspective is essential for understanding the personalized media marketplace, because technologies evolve differently in different markets. For example, the firm said the U.S. is "six to 18-months behind" Europe and Asia in terms of new mobile marketing techniques such as Short Message Service (SMS), text-based messaging that has proven to be an especially viral way of spreading word-of-mouth in overseas markets. Perhaps the best example of SMS used on a wide scale in the U.S. was the high-profile phone-in-vote campaigns utilized by Fox's "American Idol" series.
A number of top media agencies have begun tracking and analyzing the personalized media marketplace, and are initiating programs to capitalize on it, but the PR industry appears to be developing it as a dedicated marketing services practice.
Editor, MediaPost
Sunday, June 12, 2005
BoSacks Speaks Out: Can Google Rival the Newspapermen?
BoSacks Speaks Out: Can Google Rival the Newspapermen?
I feel compelled to tell you that I use Google News almost everyday. It is an extraordinary tool for news gathering. Not only the gathering of news, but more importantly, the capacity to get completely differing points of view on the same subject or news event. To me that is an aspect that is rarely mentioned and of extreme importance. For example in today's top headlines there is a story titled "G8 Urged To Ensure Debt Write-Off Reaches Poor." It is a political story coming from Reuters. That story, if it was the only one I read, would contain only one perspective. But with the Google News formula there are 1,211 other links from news sites all around the world reporting on the same story with completely different perspectives. That, my friends, is a true reservoir of diversity. You can't read them all, but reading one or two stories on important events is very important to your understanding of complex issues.
This is power publishing to the extreme. This is powerful broad based information delivery system on a global basis, that anyone, anywhere can tap into, and it doesn't even require a broadband connection. The world of publishing, or "Information Distribution", is changing every day. It is still in it's infancy, but look what we can do already. Think about what we might be able to do in five years? How about 10? Do your plans contain a global perspective? If not, why not?
Today I am sitting in a very rural section in upstate NY. Yet from here, or wherever my laptop is, I reach over 10,000 people worldwide everyday. My good friend Samir Husni says, "Think global, act local." Although I love to disagree with him, he is right on the mark with that statement. The Internet is empowering any publisher no matter how small and local it might be to have a global presence and perspective.
We are all seeing amazing changes in the publishing process. There are radical changes happening now and will continue for the foreseeable future. I often wonder if our current management teams can and will keep up with the advent of newer and even more magical technologies of information distribution.
BoSacks
-30-
The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village. - Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980)
Here is a list of the first ten articles on the G8 story listed chronologically starting with the most recently posted.
G8 urged to ensure debt write-off reaches poor
Reuters - 1 hour ago
By Manoah Esipisu. JOHANNESBURG (Reuters)
Last-minute cracks in debt relief plan
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 1 hour ago
Transparency is key to debt deal - UK's Brown
AlertNet, UK - 1 hour ago
G-8 plan for relief praised by debtors
International Herald Tribune, France - 1 hour ago
Richest nations approve debt relief for poorest
San Francisco Chronicle, CA - 3 hours ago
Rich Countries Waive the Debts of Poor Countries
Zaman Online, Turkey - 4 hours ago
G8 agrees $40bn Africa debt relief deal
Financial Times, UK - 4 hours ago
G8 writes off US$ 40 bn debt for African nations
NDTV.com, India - 5 hours ago
Wealthiest nations agree to forgive $40 billion debt
San Jose Mercury News, CA - 5 hours ago
G8 leaders agree to help poor African nations
Independent Online, South Africa - 7 hours ago
............From the General Publication News Files...............
Can Google News robot rival the newspapermen?
By George Brock
A potential nightmare faces the 'dead-tree-and-ink' business
WE ARE accustomed to the idea that media history has been made by editors and publishers. That was in the past. Now the people who may next change the way news is interpreted and delivered work in a two-storey building in the Indian city of Bangalore.
They are not exactly editors or publishers: they are mostly young Indians with PhDs in computer science. The interns who work in Bangalore for the search-engine company Google are trying to teach computers to figure out what is quality journalism. If they succeed, their impact on written journalism will be profound.
When Google’s webmasters first launched Google News in 2001, its inventors endured a lot of lofty ridicule from newspaper editors and writers pointing out that no “robot” was ever going to be a better news editor than a human. And Google’s system wasn’t perfect: it reported with a straight face that Canada had arrested George W. Bush on war crimes charges.
However, the smiles of the men and women in the dead-tree-and-ink newspaper business are fading. Google News has six million users a month. In the search-engine wars, this isn’t huge — Yahoo! News, edited by real people, has bigger reach — but the implications are more intriguing. Google News is produced entirely by computer algorithms that sift 4,500 internet news sites every quarter of an hour and produce news bulletins ranking the stories by how many times they are found. Like most of Google, the front page is bare bones: clusters of links through to the original stories wherever they appear. You can customise a news feed on a particular topic of your choice; there are 22 regional editions in nine languages.
Once upon a time, fast, accurate news was in short supply. In a wired world with a glut of news, Google wants to be the global positioning system for people who need to navigate the information jungle.
For many people, and not just journalists, this is the stuff of nightmares. For an entertaining summary of the case for the prosecution, watch a short “mockumentary” in which Google’s news robots take over the world’s news business. Without discrimination, the vast news engine spews out data largely trivial and untrue.
Google News’s young Indian founder, Krishna Bharat, is not heading for that dystopia. As the snags are being ironed out of Google News’s basic model, he has already set his interns in Bangalore to work on subtler filters to sift news.
Are the sentences and paragraphs copied from somewhere else and can that story be discarded? Does the length of the story count? How many people does the news operation employ? How many foreign correspondents does it have? Above all, Bharat is striving to establish how to teach a computer to recognise originality, a genuine scoop, clarity, concision, eloquence, political impact.
“I see us as an integral part of the news community,” Bharat told the World Editors Forum in Seoul last week. “Our relationship with newspapers is symbiotic. We send traffic directly to the content provider . . . and we amplify the amount of news being read.”
Google’s experts see information being published on a range from history books at one end to fast-breaking news on the web at the other. A reader chooses how to trade off timeliness against mature reflection. That means that newspapers have to be clear about where they sit and what their readers expect of them in the balance between speed and depth. Newspapers confused about this are those most liable to die.
Perhaps the most powerful evidence of the advance that automated news “aggregators” have made is that their workings and effect are now on the political agenda. American journalism weblogs debate whether the Google formulas demonstrate an unintentional bias between Republicans or Democrats. There was a vigorous disagreement at the conference between Bharat and US and Japanese speakers over Google’s reluctance to reveal exactly what sources it uses and how it adds or subtracts from the list.
But those arguments only go to show that Google News is a force for change, like it or not.
George Brock is the president of the World Editors Forum
For more information:
www.editorsweblog.org/t_2005_world_editors_forum_in_seoul/index.html
ojr.org/ojr/technology/1095977436.php
For further media coverage: www.timesonline.co.uk/media
I feel compelled to tell you that I use Google News almost everyday. It is an extraordinary tool for news gathering. Not only the gathering of news, but more importantly, the capacity to get completely differing points of view on the same subject or news event. To me that is an aspect that is rarely mentioned and of extreme importance. For example in today's top headlines there is a story titled "G8 Urged To Ensure Debt Write-Off Reaches Poor." It is a political story coming from Reuters. That story, if it was the only one I read, would contain only one perspective. But with the Google News formula there are 1,211 other links from news sites all around the world reporting on the same story with completely different perspectives. That, my friends, is a true reservoir of diversity. You can't read them all, but reading one or two stories on important events is very important to your understanding of complex issues.
This is power publishing to the extreme. This is powerful broad based information delivery system on a global basis, that anyone, anywhere can tap into, and it doesn't even require a broadband connection. The world of publishing, or "Information Distribution", is changing every day. It is still in it's infancy, but look what we can do already. Think about what we might be able to do in five years? How about 10? Do your plans contain a global perspective? If not, why not?
Today I am sitting in a very rural section in upstate NY. Yet from here, or wherever my laptop is, I reach over 10,000 people worldwide everyday. My good friend Samir Husni says, "Think global, act local." Although I love to disagree with him, he is right on the mark with that statement. The Internet is empowering any publisher no matter how small and local it might be to have a global presence and perspective.
We are all seeing amazing changes in the publishing process. There are radical changes happening now and will continue for the foreseeable future. I often wonder if our current management teams can and will keep up with the advent of newer and even more magical technologies of information distribution.
BoSacks
-30-
The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village. - Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980)
Here is a list of the first ten articles on the G8 story listed chronologically starting with the most recently posted.
G8 urged to ensure debt write-off reaches poor
Reuters - 1 hour ago
By Manoah Esipisu. JOHANNESBURG (Reuters)
Last-minute cracks in debt relief plan
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 1 hour ago
Transparency is key to debt deal - UK's Brown
AlertNet, UK - 1 hour ago
G-8 plan for relief praised by debtors
International Herald Tribune, France - 1 hour ago
Richest nations approve debt relief for poorest
San Francisco Chronicle, CA - 3 hours ago
Rich Countries Waive the Debts of Poor Countries
Zaman Online, Turkey - 4 hours ago
G8 agrees $40bn Africa debt relief deal
Financial Times, UK - 4 hours ago
G8 writes off US$ 40 bn debt for African nations
NDTV.com, India - 5 hours ago
Wealthiest nations agree to forgive $40 billion debt
San Jose Mercury News, CA - 5 hours ago
G8 leaders agree to help poor African nations
Independent Online, South Africa - 7 hours ago
............From the General Publication News Files...............
Can Google News robot rival the newspapermen?
By George Brock
A potential nightmare faces the 'dead-tree-and-ink' business
WE ARE accustomed to the idea that media history has been made by editors and publishers. That was in the past. Now the people who may next change the way news is interpreted and delivered work in a two-storey building in the Indian city of Bangalore.
They are not exactly editors or publishers: they are mostly young Indians with PhDs in computer science. The interns who work in Bangalore for the search-engine company Google are trying to teach computers to figure out what is quality journalism. If they succeed, their impact on written journalism will be profound.
When Google’s webmasters first launched Google News in 2001, its inventors endured a lot of lofty ridicule from newspaper editors and writers pointing out that no “robot” was ever going to be a better news editor than a human. And Google’s system wasn’t perfect: it reported with a straight face that Canada had arrested George W. Bush on war crimes charges.
However, the smiles of the men and women in the dead-tree-and-ink newspaper business are fading. Google News has six million users a month. In the search-engine wars, this isn’t huge — Yahoo! News, edited by real people, has bigger reach — but the implications are more intriguing. Google News is produced entirely by computer algorithms that sift 4,500 internet news sites every quarter of an hour and produce news bulletins ranking the stories by how many times they are found. Like most of Google, the front page is bare bones: clusters of links through to the original stories wherever they appear. You can customise a news feed on a particular topic of your choice; there are 22 regional editions in nine languages.
Once upon a time, fast, accurate news was in short supply. In a wired world with a glut of news, Google wants to be the global positioning system for people who need to navigate the information jungle.
For many people, and not just journalists, this is the stuff of nightmares. For an entertaining summary of the case for the prosecution, watch a short “mockumentary” in which Google’s news robots take over the world’s news business. Without discrimination, the vast news engine spews out data largely trivial and untrue.
Google News’s young Indian founder, Krishna Bharat, is not heading for that dystopia. As the snags are being ironed out of Google News’s basic model, he has already set his interns in Bangalore to work on subtler filters to sift news.
Are the sentences and paragraphs copied from somewhere else and can that story be discarded? Does the length of the story count? How many people does the news operation employ? How many foreign correspondents does it have? Above all, Bharat is striving to establish how to teach a computer to recognise originality, a genuine scoop, clarity, concision, eloquence, political impact.
“I see us as an integral part of the news community,” Bharat told the World Editors Forum in Seoul last week. “Our relationship with newspapers is symbiotic. We send traffic directly to the content provider . . . and we amplify the amount of news being read.”
Google’s experts see information being published on a range from history books at one end to fast-breaking news on the web at the other. A reader chooses how to trade off timeliness against mature reflection. That means that newspapers have to be clear about where they sit and what their readers expect of them in the balance between speed and depth. Newspapers confused about this are those most liable to die.
Perhaps the most powerful evidence of the advance that automated news “aggregators” have made is that their workings and effect are now on the political agenda. American journalism weblogs debate whether the Google formulas demonstrate an unintentional bias between Republicans or Democrats. There was a vigorous disagreement at the conference between Bharat and US and Japanese speakers over Google’s reluctance to reveal exactly what sources it uses and how it adds or subtracts from the list.
But those arguments only go to show that Google News is a force for change, like it or not.
George Brock is the president of the World Editors Forum
For more information:
www.editorsweblog.org/t_2005_world_editors_forum_in_seoul/index.html
ojr.org/ojr/technology/1095977436.php
For further media coverage: www.timesonline.co.uk/media
Who's Checking the Numbers?
Who's Checking the Numbers?
by Dave Morgan, Tuesday, Jun 7, 2005 6:00 AM EST
BUSINESS WEEK BLOGSPOTTING'S STEVE BAKER made a great point last week that blogs are bringing math into journalism:
He opines that the open publishing platform is giving media voices to non-traditional journalists, like technologists and mathematicians who have very strong math skills and are bringing with them some much-needed quantitative discipline to the profession.
As someone who works in online advertising, an industry that lives and dies by numbers, Steve's point really hit home with me.
The online advertising world is awash with numbers, and we need more people covering that world who can make sense of them.
An enormous advantage presented by the growth of digital computing is their acute measurability. You can generate, analyze, and report numbers on almost anything related to digital media and marketing these days. Unfortunately, while this wealth of numerical data in the right hands can be powerful and liberating, it can also be overwhelming and quite misleading when misused.
It is virtually impossible to consume industry information and communication these days without encountering numbers, whether it is a news article in one of the trades, or a corporate press release, or a presentation at an industry conference. Numbers are everywhere, and usually, by their sheer specificity, they tend to carry a lot of weight. But should they?
All too often, numbers are released, reported, and accepted as gospel because no one in the audience is either knowledgeable or comfortable enough to ask the right questions. During the Internet Bubble years, everyone was making pronouncements about the size of the online ad marketplace. Every forecast got bigger, and no one questioned them because everyone wanted to believe. As I recall, one of the first attempts to call the numbers into question occurred in 1998 and was led by BURST! Media's Jarvis Coffin.
Uncomfortable with seemingly inflated numbers coming out of the portals, ad tracking services, and trade organizations, BURST! sponsored original research that analyzed that actual financial discloses of advertisers and found that their online ad spend was being inflated by more than 50 percent. While many in the industry dismissed his research as wrong and "contrarian" at that time, two years later, once the billion-plus dollars in "roundtrips" and fraudulent bookings at places like AOL and Homestore.com and dozens of others came to light, it became clear that he was right, and that the industry had been living with bad numbers. In the end, we lost a lot of credibility that it has taken the better part of 5 years to rebuild.
We need to be better prepared this time to have our numbers scrutinized by experts. For example, I, like others, was quite happy to see TNS Media Intelligence recently release their list of Top Internet Advertisers for the month of April together with the estimated monthly spend for each advertiser. Having data like this available in the market is a true benefit to all.
Once I looked at the actual numbers, however, I was not so sure that they were doing anyone a real service. The number one reported advertiser, "Tickle by Emode," was estimated to have spent $23,770,000 on online advertising in the month of April. Number two was Vonage at $21,829,000 for the month. Number three was South Beach Diet at $18,607,000. Number four was Lowermybills.com at $14,124,000. Netflix.com was number six at $12,508,000 and Classmates.com was number seven at $10,137,000. Basically, this report says that these companies had online ad spend in the month of April at a $100,000,000 to $250,000,000 annualized rate each.
I don't believe it. Does anybody else?
I don't believe that any of these companies spent anything close to those numbers in actual dollars in the month of April. I think that all TNS did was take some gross ad delivery numbers and multiply them by some estimated generic rate card numbers (which, as anyone in the industry knows, does not exist) and published the product of those numbers. They totally missed the fact that a large portion, and probably the majority, of all online ads are sold on a cost-per-click or cost-per-action basis. Their disclaimer (presented with the numbers) that "Media expenditures do not always take into account special considerations including publisher discounts, barter agreements, co-sponsorship, affiliate relationships, etc." misses all of that.
It is not my intention to single out TNS here. My concern is that numbers like these need to have their methodology called into question. They carry a lot of legitimacy because of their sponsor and their specificity. We need people that know the questions to ask and who can analyze and interpret the results. I hope that Steve is right. I hope that more mathematicians are coming our way.
Dave Morgan is CEO of Tacoda Systems.
by Dave Morgan, Tuesday, Jun 7, 2005 6:00 AM EST
BUSINESS WEEK BLOGSPOTTING'S STEVE BAKER made a great point last week that blogs are bringing math into journalism:
He opines that the open publishing platform is giving media voices to non-traditional journalists, like technologists and mathematicians who have very strong math skills and are bringing with them some much-needed quantitative discipline to the profession.
As someone who works in online advertising, an industry that lives and dies by numbers, Steve's point really hit home with me.
The online advertising world is awash with numbers, and we need more people covering that world who can make sense of them.
An enormous advantage presented by the growth of digital computing is their acute measurability. You can generate, analyze, and report numbers on almost anything related to digital media and marketing these days. Unfortunately, while this wealth of numerical data in the right hands can be powerful and liberating, it can also be overwhelming and quite misleading when misused.
It is virtually impossible to consume industry information and communication these days without encountering numbers, whether it is a news article in one of the trades, or a corporate press release, or a presentation at an industry conference. Numbers are everywhere, and usually, by their sheer specificity, they tend to carry a lot of weight. But should they?
All too often, numbers are released, reported, and accepted as gospel because no one in the audience is either knowledgeable or comfortable enough to ask the right questions. During the Internet Bubble years, everyone was making pronouncements about the size of the online ad marketplace. Every forecast got bigger, and no one questioned them because everyone wanted to believe. As I recall, one of the first attempts to call the numbers into question occurred in 1998 and was led by BURST! Media's Jarvis Coffin.
Uncomfortable with seemingly inflated numbers coming out of the portals, ad tracking services, and trade organizations, BURST! sponsored original research that analyzed that actual financial discloses of advertisers and found that their online ad spend was being inflated by more than 50 percent. While many in the industry dismissed his research as wrong and "contrarian" at that time, two years later, once the billion-plus dollars in "roundtrips" and fraudulent bookings at places like AOL and Homestore.com and dozens of others came to light, it became clear that he was right, and that the industry had been living with bad numbers. In the end, we lost a lot of credibility that it has taken the better part of 5 years to rebuild.
We need to be better prepared this time to have our numbers scrutinized by experts. For example, I, like others, was quite happy to see TNS Media Intelligence recently release their list of Top Internet Advertisers for the month of April together with the estimated monthly spend for each advertiser. Having data like this available in the market is a true benefit to all.
Once I looked at the actual numbers, however, I was not so sure that they were doing anyone a real service. The number one reported advertiser, "Tickle by Emode," was estimated to have spent $23,770,000 on online advertising in the month of April. Number two was Vonage at $21,829,000 for the month. Number three was South Beach Diet at $18,607,000. Number four was Lowermybills.com at $14,124,000. Netflix.com was number six at $12,508,000 and Classmates.com was number seven at $10,137,000. Basically, this report says that these companies had online ad spend in the month of April at a $100,000,000 to $250,000,000 annualized rate each.
I don't believe it. Does anybody else?
I don't believe that any of these companies spent anything close to those numbers in actual dollars in the month of April. I think that all TNS did was take some gross ad delivery numbers and multiply them by some estimated generic rate card numbers (which, as anyone in the industry knows, does not exist) and published the product of those numbers. They totally missed the fact that a large portion, and probably the majority, of all online ads are sold on a cost-per-click or cost-per-action basis. Their disclaimer (presented with the numbers) that "Media expenditures do not always take into account special considerations including publisher discounts, barter agreements, co-sponsorship, affiliate relationships, etc." misses all of that.
It is not my intention to single out TNS here. My concern is that numbers like these need to have their methodology called into question. They carry a lot of legitimacy because of their sponsor and their specificity. We need people that know the questions to ask and who can analyze and interpret the results. I hope that Steve is right. I hope that more mathematicians are coming our way.
Dave Morgan is CEO of Tacoda Systems.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Demand for magazine ads down 0.7% in April 2005
Demand for magazine ads down 0.7% in April 2005 by ZDNet's ZDNet -- So far the demand for magazine ad pages in 2005 grew 0.8% with April 2005 declining by 0.7%. Publisher Information Bureau posted the following numbers for magazine ad demand in 2005:April: -0.7% March: +1.2% February: +4.2% January: -0.4% YTD: +0.8%
Friday, June 03, 2005
Consumers devour new magazines about food
Consumers devour new magazines about food
By Ellen Sweets
The Denver Post
June 1, 2005
Whether you're a dieter, gourmet, diabetic, chile pepper lover, carnivore, vegetarian, experienced cook or neophyte, there is a food magazine looking for you.
Where food aficionados once looked either to Bon Appetit or Gourmet to divine what hip thing was happening on America's tables, both have come up against niche competition over the years, from Saveur and Southern Living to Wine Spectator and Cooking Light.
Chris Allen, Cooking Light publisher, says his is now the largest food magazine in the country, with 1.7 million copies sold monthly -- compared with Bon Appetit's 1.3 million and Gourmet's 950,000.
"Eating healthier is no longer a trend," he says. "It is mainstream."
Samir Husni, known as "Mr. Magazine," is considered by many to be the world's leading authority on magazines. Husni, a journalism professor at the University of Mississippi, also heads Magazine Consulting and Research, a firm specializing in launching new magazines, repositioning established ones and packaging publications for better sales and presentations.
"Last year, there were 1,006 new magazines, and 105 of them related to food, from cooking for two to summer grilling, winter grilling, low carbs, cooking easy, cooking light and cooking for the diabetic. Food magazines are consistently about 10 percent of the magazine market," he says.
Val Weaver, editor in chief of Vegetarian Times, says her publication has come a long way since the brown rice, tofu, nuts and berries diet of the '70s hippie movement.
"Then along came 'Moosewood' and 'Diet for a Small Planet,' and the vegetarian movement hit its stride," she says. "But (vegetarianism) really went mainstream, especially once people realized that vegetarian food didn't have to taste bad."
But are people really cooking from these narrowly segmented, niche publications? Husni says there's no way to know that.
"Unless you use them regularly, and most people don't, food magazines are mainly something to whet your appetite without gaining weight," he says.
"We think people want to cook when it is fun or recreational, that's why Whole Foods (Markets) was so brilliant. Cooking needs to be fun because we're going crazy with everything else."
By Ellen Sweets
The Denver Post
June 1, 2005
Whether you're a dieter, gourmet, diabetic, chile pepper lover, carnivore, vegetarian, experienced cook or neophyte, there is a food magazine looking for you.
Where food aficionados once looked either to Bon Appetit or Gourmet to divine what hip thing was happening on America's tables, both have come up against niche competition over the years, from Saveur and Southern Living to Wine Spectator and Cooking Light.
Chris Allen, Cooking Light publisher, says his is now the largest food magazine in the country, with 1.7 million copies sold monthly -- compared with Bon Appetit's 1.3 million and Gourmet's 950,000.
"Eating healthier is no longer a trend," he says. "It is mainstream."
Samir Husni, known as "Mr. Magazine," is considered by many to be the world's leading authority on magazines. Husni, a journalism professor at the University of Mississippi, also heads Magazine Consulting and Research, a firm specializing in launching new magazines, repositioning established ones and packaging publications for better sales and presentations.
"Last year, there were 1,006 new magazines, and 105 of them related to food, from cooking for two to summer grilling, winter grilling, low carbs, cooking easy, cooking light and cooking for the diabetic. Food magazines are consistently about 10 percent of the magazine market," he says.
Val Weaver, editor in chief of Vegetarian Times, says her publication has come a long way since the brown rice, tofu, nuts and berries diet of the '70s hippie movement.
"Then along came 'Moosewood' and 'Diet for a Small Planet,' and the vegetarian movement hit its stride," she says. "But (vegetarianism) really went mainstream, especially once people realized that vegetarian food didn't have to taste bad."
But are people really cooking from these narrowly segmented, niche publications? Husni says there's no way to know that.
"Unless you use them regularly, and most people don't, food magazines are mainly something to whet your appetite without gaining weight," he says.
"We think people want to cook when it is fun or recreational, that's why Whole Foods (Markets) was so brilliant. Cooking needs to be fun because we're going crazy with everything else."
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
A novel idea using e-mail
Picking up a novel can be hard. It's the start of hours of commitment with no guarantee of satisfaction. And an unfinished novel sits on the nightstand, a daily rebuke.Whereas opening e-mail is easy. Many of us read dozens of them a day with no more effort than it takes to click a mouse.So why not combine the two?
That's what Toronto screenwriter Michael Betcherman and California journalist David Diamond have done with "The Daughters of Freya," apparently the first novel to be delivered to readers as e-mail.It can't be found in bookstores, and a traditional print-and-paper version of the mystery doesn't exist. Instead, readers order it online and receive three to four e-mails a day (99 in all) for 3½ weeks.Each e-mail takes no more than a minute or two to read. Some contain links to fictitious magazine or newspaper articles or pictures of some characters.The novel is not only delivered in e-mail; it's written in that form.
The entire story is told in e-mails between the characters. Each day's clump of e-mails ends on a cliffhanger, which tantalizes readers who cannot read ahead to solve the mystery.Betcherman said he and Diamond, old friends who'd kept in touch via e-mail, first got the idea of writing a book in e-mails, but a friend suggested they deliver it that way as well. It made sense to Betcherman.E-books are not new. Stephen King launched the first, "Riding the Bullet," in 2000. While he sold more than 500,000 copies, rampant piracy marred the debut. The form has come a long way since then but still requires downloading large blocks of text into computers or PDAs, which can be tiring to read. People are used to reading short e-mails, though."The medium and the form of the story are one. People use the Internet in the way they're accustomed to," Betcherman said.He said nearly 1,000 "copies" have been sold since the fall at a cost of $7.49 apiece. He said he and Diamond are looking at it as a business model. They might hire other writers to write e-mail e-books in other genres."I think there is a big future to it," Betcherman said.
CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR THE REST OF THE STORY
That's what Toronto screenwriter Michael Betcherman and California journalist David Diamond have done with "The Daughters of Freya," apparently the first novel to be delivered to readers as e-mail.It can't be found in bookstores, and a traditional print-and-paper version of the mystery doesn't exist. Instead, readers order it online and receive three to four e-mails a day (99 in all) for 3½ weeks.Each e-mail takes no more than a minute or two to read. Some contain links to fictitious magazine or newspaper articles or pictures of some characters.The novel is not only delivered in e-mail; it's written in that form.
The entire story is told in e-mails between the characters. Each day's clump of e-mails ends on a cliffhanger, which tantalizes readers who cannot read ahead to solve the mystery.Betcherman said he and Diamond, old friends who'd kept in touch via e-mail, first got the idea of writing a book in e-mails, but a friend suggested they deliver it that way as well. It made sense to Betcherman.E-books are not new. Stephen King launched the first, "Riding the Bullet," in 2000. While he sold more than 500,000 copies, rampant piracy marred the debut. The form has come a long way since then but still requires downloading large blocks of text into computers or PDAs, which can be tiring to read. People are used to reading short e-mails, though."The medium and the form of the story are one. People use the Internet in the way they're accustomed to," Betcherman said.He said nearly 1,000 "copies" have been sold since the fall at a cost of $7.49 apiece. He said he and Diamond are looking at it as a business model. They might hire other writers to write e-mail e-books in other genres."I think there is a big future to it," Betcherman said.
CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR THE REST OF THE STORY
A novel idea using e-mail
A novel idea using e-mailMonday, March 28, 2005James F. SweeneyPlain Dealer ReporterPicking up a novel can be hard. It's the start of hours of commitment with no guarantee of satisfaction. And an unfinished novel sits on the nightstand, a daily rebuke.Whereas opening e-mail is easy. Many of us read dozens of them a day with no more effort than it takes to click a mouse.So why not combine the two?That's what Toronto screenwriter Michael Betcherman and California journalist David Diamond have done with "The Daughters of Freya," apparently the first novel to be delivered to readers as e-mail.It can't be found in bookstores, and a traditional print-and-paper version of the mystery doesn't exist. Instead, readers order it online and receive three to four e-mails a day (99 in all) for 3½ weeks.
Each e-mail takes no more than a minute or two to read. Some contain links to fictitious magazine or newspaper articles or pictures of some characters.The novel is not only delivered in e-mail; it's written in that form. The entire story is told in e-mails between the characters. Each day's clump of e-mails ends on a cliffhanger, which tantalizes readers who cannot read ahead to solve the mystery.Betcherman said he and Diamond, old friends who'd kept in touch via e-mail, first got the idea of writing a book in e-mails, but a friend suggested they deliver it that way as well. It made sense to Betcherman.E-books are not new. Stephen King launched the first, "Riding the Bullet," in 2000. While he sold more than 500,000 copies, rampant piracy marred the debut. The form has come a long way since then but still requires downloading large blocks of text into computers or PDAs, which can be tiring to read. People are used to reading short e-mails, though."The medium and the form of the story are one. People use the Internet in the way they're accustomed to," Betcherman said.He said nearly 1,000 "copies" have been sold since the fall at a cost of $7.49 apiece.
He said he and Diamond are looking at it as a business model. They might hire other writers to write e-mail e-books in other genres."I think there is a big future to it," Betcherman said."The Daughters of Freya" is a mystery about an investigative reporter looking into a sex cult in San Francisco.The authors do a good job of keeping true to the form they've chosen. The e-mails read like real e-mails, not literature forced into an artificial form. There are no lengthy descriptions of sunsets or characters' looks. But, despite the creative use of a BlackBerry during the novel's climax, the limitations of e-mail make it hard to convey action or description.And that's the drawback to the form. A good novel absorbs the reader. The characters, the settings and the plot become real.While a competent mystery, "The Daughters of Freya" never achieves that intimacy. The reader is a passive viewer of e-mails between characters and so remains at an emotional distance. A cult member is murdered? The investigative reporter is in danger? Ho hum.In the end, the difference between "The Daughters of Freya" and a traditional novel is the difference between an e-mail and a handwritten letter from a friend. The electronic version is faster and easier but, ultimately, less satisfying.For more information about "The Daughters of Freya," go to www.emailmystery.com.
Each e-mail takes no more than a minute or two to read. Some contain links to fictitious magazine or newspaper articles or pictures of some characters.The novel is not only delivered in e-mail; it's written in that form. The entire story is told in e-mails between the characters. Each day's clump of e-mails ends on a cliffhanger, which tantalizes readers who cannot read ahead to solve the mystery.Betcherman said he and Diamond, old friends who'd kept in touch via e-mail, first got the idea of writing a book in e-mails, but a friend suggested they deliver it that way as well. It made sense to Betcherman.E-books are not new. Stephen King launched the first, "Riding the Bullet," in 2000. While he sold more than 500,000 copies, rampant piracy marred the debut. The form has come a long way since then but still requires downloading large blocks of text into computers or PDAs, which can be tiring to read. People are used to reading short e-mails, though."The medium and the form of the story are one. People use the Internet in the way they're accustomed to," Betcherman said.He said nearly 1,000 "copies" have been sold since the fall at a cost of $7.49 apiece.
He said he and Diamond are looking at it as a business model. They might hire other writers to write e-mail e-books in other genres."I think there is a big future to it," Betcherman said."The Daughters of Freya" is a mystery about an investigative reporter looking into a sex cult in San Francisco.The authors do a good job of keeping true to the form they've chosen. The e-mails read like real e-mails, not literature forced into an artificial form. There are no lengthy descriptions of sunsets or characters' looks. But, despite the creative use of a BlackBerry during the novel's climax, the limitations of e-mail make it hard to convey action or description.And that's the drawback to the form. A good novel absorbs the reader. The characters, the settings and the plot become real.While a competent mystery, "The Daughters of Freya" never achieves that intimacy. The reader is a passive viewer of e-mails between characters and so remains at an emotional distance. A cult member is murdered? The investigative reporter is in danger? Ho hum.In the end, the difference between "The Daughters of Freya" and a traditional novel is the difference between an e-mail and a handwritten letter from a friend. The electronic version is faster and easier but, ultimately, less satisfying.For more information about "The Daughters of Freya," go to www.emailmystery.com.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Surprise! -- Consumers Take Control Of Media
Study Concludes -- Surprise! -- Consumers Take Control Of Media
by Gavin O'Malley
FROM TIVO TO IPODS, AN estimated 27 million U.S. citizens own one or more on-demand media devices, according to a study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research released this week.
The study, based on January telephone interviews with 1,855 participants, found that 10 percent of consumers watched video-on-demand via cable or satellite in the prior 30 days; 11 percent accessed news online; and 37 million consumers listened to Web radio.
"The study shows that consumers, while still using traditional media, have great enthusiasm and passion for on-demand media," Bill Rose, senior vice president-marketing and U.S. media services at Arbitron, said in a statement.
Additionally, Arbitron and Edison determined that 27 percent of 12- to-17-year-olds own an iPod or other portable MP3 player; an estimated 43 million Americans choose to record TV programming to watch at a different time, either with a VCR or TiVo/DVR; 76 percent of consumers own at least one DVD; and 39 percent own 20 or more DVDs in their personal collection.
The study also found that awareness of XM Satellite Radio has tripled since 2002, from 17 to 50 percent, while awareness of Sirius Satellite Radio has risen from 8 to 54 percent.
by Gavin O'Malley
FROM TIVO TO IPODS, AN estimated 27 million U.S. citizens own one or more on-demand media devices, according to a study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research released this week.
The study, based on January telephone interviews with 1,855 participants, found that 10 percent of consumers watched video-on-demand via cable or satellite in the prior 30 days; 11 percent accessed news online; and 37 million consumers listened to Web radio.
"The study shows that consumers, while still using traditional media, have great enthusiasm and passion for on-demand media," Bill Rose, senior vice president-marketing and U.S. media services at Arbitron, said in a statement.
Additionally, Arbitron and Edison determined that 27 percent of 12- to-17-year-olds own an iPod or other portable MP3 player; an estimated 43 million Americans choose to record TV programming to watch at a different time, either with a VCR or TiVo/DVR; 76 percent of consumers own at least one DVD; and 39 percent own 20 or more DVDs in their personal collection.
The study also found that awareness of XM Satellite Radio has tripled since 2002, from 17 to 50 percent, while awareness of Sirius Satellite Radio has risen from 8 to 54 percent.
Intel invests in E Ink
E Ink is just around the corner. It will change everything. Keep your eyes on the trends and the players who are getting into the process.
----------------
-Intel invests in E Ink
By Tony Smith (tony.smith at theregister.co.uk)
Published Wednesday 23rd March 2005 10:00 GMT
Intel has pumped cash into E Ink, the electronic 'ink' technology developer, it was revealed yesterday.
The investment - the amount was not made public - comes through Intel Capital, the chip maker's venture capital division, which funds start-ups developing technology and applications that, one day, may boost demand for PCs and thus Intel's chip products.
E Ink's technology has already been licensed by Philips, which has used it in a non-volatile 'electronic paper' display. That unit, in turn, was chosen by Sony as the basis for the Librié 1000EP (right) electronic book it launched in Japan (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/25/sony_launches_true_electronic_book/) a year ago. The display's resolution is 600 x 800, but it operates at 170dpi.
E-Ink's system uses charged black and white particles. Under the influence of an electric field, the particles adhere to the panel, allowing them to stay there when the current is removed. Power is only needed to change the image, not to maintain it, making the technology suitable for very low power applications.
The Philips display is capable of creating four-level greyscale images, presumably by varying the density of particles in a given area, in the same way photos are reproduced in print.
E Ink's finance VP, Ken Titlebaum, said Intel's cash would be used to fund the development of the next generation of the company's electronic ink technology. ®
Related stories
Sony launches true electronic book (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/25/sony_launches_true_electronic_book/)
Philips demos bendiest LCD yet (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/27/philips_demos_bendiest_lcd_yet/)
© Copyright 2005
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-Intel invests in E Ink
By Tony Smith (tony.smith at theregister.co.uk)
Published Wednesday 23rd March 2005 10:00 GMT
Intel has pumped cash into E Ink, the electronic 'ink' technology developer, it was revealed yesterday.
The investment - the amount was not made public - comes through Intel Capital, the chip maker's venture capital division, which funds start-ups developing technology and applications that, one day, may boost demand for PCs and thus Intel's chip products.
E Ink's technology has already been licensed by Philips, which has used it in a non-volatile 'electronic paper' display. That unit, in turn, was chosen by Sony as the basis for the Librié 1000EP (right) electronic book it launched in Japan (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/25/sony_launches_true_electronic_book/) a year ago. The display's resolution is 600 x 800, but it operates at 170dpi.
E-Ink's system uses charged black and white particles. Under the influence of an electric field, the particles adhere to the panel, allowing them to stay there when the current is removed. Power is only needed to change the image, not to maintain it, making the technology suitable for very low power applications.
The Philips display is capable of creating four-level greyscale images, presumably by varying the density of particles in a given area, in the same way photos are reproduced in print.
E Ink's finance VP, Ken Titlebaum, said Intel's cash would be used to fund the development of the next generation of the company's electronic ink technology. ®
Related stories
Sony launches true electronic book (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/25/sony_launches_true_electronic_book/)
Philips demos bendiest LCD yet (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/27/philips_demos_bendiest_lcd_yet/)
© Copyright 2005
Monday, March 21, 2005
Publishers are under increasing skepticism by the public
Publishers are under increased skepticism by the public at large. Is that as it should be? Do we deserve the skepticism? Are we as a group failing in our public trust? Or is this just an aberration, blown out of proportion by a few and perceived a failure of many?
Either way, what to we do to regain our creditability?
Either way, what to we do to regain our creditability?
Friday, March 18, 2005
E-Paper Is Making Great Progress
I found the attached article about e-paper very interesting. E-paper is making great progress. Did you know that the US Army is very involved in E-paper. They intend to use it as GPS connected maps. Imagine that! Maps that are updated on a second by second basis. Once this is perfected, and it soon will be, it’s application for publishing will be wonderfully powerful.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Would you Rather get an Outside Service to do the Inside Work?
There is an old Dr. Edward Deming way of looking at a corporation that that comes to my mind from time to time.
The short essence of it is this: If you could, would you use the various departments in your company or would you rather get an outside service to do the work? An interesting question.
So I am asking you. If you could, would you use your current production, edit, or sales teams, or would you rather get the same services somewhere else? Think about it up and down the corporate chain. What would really be best from your departments perspective?
The short essence of it is this: If you could, would you use the various departments in your company or would you rather get an outside service to do the work? An interesting question.
So I am asking you. If you could, would you use your current production, edit, or sales teams, or would you rather get the same services somewhere else? Think about it up and down the corporate chain. What would really be best from your departments perspective?
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Who will be the best aggregator of the information process.
In the new world of Electronic information distribution, where does/should a printer place himself? Should he/can he be the center of a digital distribution chain, so that all files can printed, webbed, blogged, emailed and otherwise sent out to the general public in multiple formats. Or should all those responsibilities reside at the publisher’s domain? Who is/will be the best aggregator of the process.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Can a blog one day replace true journalism?
Can a blog one day replace true journalism?
What is the possibility that one day, magazines,newspapers and other respected printed matter will be replaced by individual blogs?
What is the possibility that one day, magazines,newspapers and other respected printed matter will be replaced by individual blogs?
Friday, March 11, 2005
BoSacks Speaks Out: Local Mobile Search? Hold the Phone
BoSacks Speaks Out: Local Mobile Search? Hold the Phone
There is yet another fork in the road of the information superhighway where printed magazines and newspapers were once the dominant source of information, but are now being replaced by a faster, personalized, geographically accurate electronic device/service. It seems that each day now I see areas of information distribution where once we were kings and now perhaps dukes, earls and little princelings. Our royalty status is on the decline. Cell Phones are now a source of instant news and information, much like the antique newspapers of your grandfathers. Only quicker and with GPS localization.
I will add another dimension to this that goes beyond just the ease of use. Today's generations do not like to read. Here is yet another example of how they can have the information they want without the need of reading to get it. Pablum information tools. No thinking to get it, and nothing to intellectually digest. This factoid type of information distribution is becoming mainstream. My best guess is that the next generation does know, or has at least heard, some of the current news headlines and world events, but they have little to none of the details beyond the headlines. I don't know if anyone has said this before, but I find this "factoid generation" more then a little troublesome.
There is yet another fork in the road of the information superhighway where printed magazines and newspapers were once the dominant source of information, but are now being replaced by a faster, personalized, geographically accurate electronic device/service. It seems that each day now I see areas of information distribution where once we were kings and now perhaps dukes, earls and little princelings. Our royalty status is on the decline. Cell Phones are now a source of instant news and information, much like the antique newspapers of your grandfathers. Only quicker and with GPS localization.
I will add another dimension to this that goes beyond just the ease of use. Today's generations do not like to read. Here is yet another example of how they can have the information they want without the need of reading to get it. Pablum information tools. No thinking to get it, and nothing to intellectually digest. This factoid type of information distribution is becoming mainstream. My best guess is that the next generation does know, or has at least heard, some of the current news headlines and world events, but they have little to none of the details beyond the headlines. I don't know if anyone has said this before, but I find this "factoid generation" more then a little troublesome.
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