Netly News

A great "second" read?

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From David Carr's column today on Rupert Murdoch's gut renovation of the Wall Street Journal:

There is certainly no evidence that Mr. Murdoch has turned the newspaper into a tool of his business or political interests — something that had been widely feared and predicted. But there are clear signs that a sui generis business paper is fast becoming a very common general-interest paper, albeit one with a really dynamite business section.

Hmmmm, hang on a second... You mean the Journal might be veering more directly into competition with Carr's employer, the New York Times? Carr continues:

Mr. Murdoch has a few more billions to his credit than I do, but the paper looks to me to be surrendering much of its fundamental value. In order to make The Journal a first-read, Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Thomson are toying with the interest of those of us who have always thought of it as a can’t-miss second read.

Right, it'll never work. Better to keep the Wall Street Journal exactly what it was... Oh wait, this just in:

Circulation numbers for the six-month period ending March 31, 2008:
* New York Times down 9.2% on Sunday, 3.8% daily
* Wall Street Journal up 0.3%
(From Editor & Publisher)

Can Facebook Save Business 2.0?

The New York Times reported earlier this week that Time Inc., the corporate parent of Business 2.0, the magazine I edit, is considering shuttering it. Our situation is a fairly common one these days: As more and more ad revenue is shifting from print to online media, many magazines are going the way of the telegraph.

What happened after the Times story was published, though, was an It's-A-Wonderful-Life kind of surprise, one that continues to amaze me, minute by minute: Two readers from Canada started a Facebook Group to rally support for Business 2.0. Within 40 hours of the Times story, 350 people had joined the group. (I believe I was member number 7, having read about the group on Techmeme.) By last night the number topped 700 and as of this writing we've got over 900 supporters. At this rate, we ought to hit 1,000 people (bright-eyed geniuses, every one of them, with big brains and enormous disposable incomes!) by the weekend. Please forgive me for obsessively checking The Number; I am starting to feel like Jerry Lewis in the waning hours of a telethon...

So how big this thing will get? What effect it will have on the folks in whose hands the fate of this magazine rests?

iPhone Blogging for Dollars

Apple's iPhone has been very, very good to the blogosphere.

Whether the $500 gadget  actually sells out at Apple stores on Friday remains to be seen. But the blogs that have been fanning iPhone Fever since January can already declare a healthy windfall: Millions of extra dollars in ad-generated income have already flowed into bloggers' pockets, thanks to record pageviews, according to estimates. And the best may be yet to come.

An Unhealthy Conversation

Image from small biz marketing

The Microsoft “people-ready” kerfluffle, broken by Nick Denton and now playing at finer blogs everywhere, is one of the most interesting things to have happened here in years. It raises a key question about independence and credibility: Are bloggers truth tellers (i.e. journalists?) or are they money makers (business people)?

My friend John Battelle, who runs Federated Media, responded well Saturday night, and his conclusion is much on target. Disclosure is key in media. Readers must know at all times whether what they’re reading is edit, or advertising.

But I disagree with a lot of what he says about the growing, and to my mind obnoxious, trend of “conversational marketing.”

The future of print

Here's one of the best things I've read so far about the future of print media.  Pat McGovern, founder and chairman of IDG, says that within three years, he expects 50% of the company's revenues will come from online media, 35% from print and 15% from events...