Netly News

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?

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...

The Emperor's New Transparent Clothes

Chris Anderson writes eloquently and provocatively, as usual, on his blog about ways  in which magazines could become smarter and more open.

If the key word is "participation", how could we encourage that to the fullest? If trust comes come from transparency, how might we open the entire process? What does open source media really mean? link

Some of the ideas Chris has: Encourage staff to blog (which would show, among other things, who's interested in what), publish wikis detailing what the magazine's writers are working on (which would allow the public to participate, suggest better stories, leads, etc.); "share the reporting" as it happens (let the public see interview transcripts and "working" versions of drafts as they're written); and let the readers decide what's best (make the magazine a pure democracy, a la Digg). As I snarked in the comments on his blog, I think this is an excellent plan. Wired should do it at once...

Vote early, vote often

I think our's ought to win, even though it was not a cover. (Partly, we nixed this to spare Arrington, who was such a good sport about being photographed at all.)