Category: idg

IDG does the right thing

For a company that avoids PR so actively, IDG has recently launched itself onto the media stage with great vigor.

The closure of InfoWorld magazine a month ago signalled the end of an era across the magazine market, and then Colin Crawford’s conflict with Harry McCracken resulted in a very public slap on the wrist from IDG headquarters.

IDG Chairman Pat McGovern isn’t known for tolerating mismanagement at any single business unit. He gives each business unit leader great control, but that comes with responsibility. As people have joked in the past, McGovern gives them enough rope to hang themselves.

Here’s how Business 2.0 described the turn of events:

“In a rare and dramatic victory for editorial independence in today’s dismal magazine climate, PC World has ousted the CEO who spiked a story critical of a major advertiser — Apple Inc. — and reinstated the editor-in-chief who had quit in protest.”

What I find most interesting about the PC World story is the fact that both employees have decided to stay at the company. I don’t blame them. It’s a great place to work.

Harry’s profile while already high at the company will become an important symbol for all IDG editors who occasionally get challenged by the business pressures to file fluff. His return means this wasn’t a personal quest for martyrdom but rather a compassionate stand against unpleasant and maybe unethical working conditions.

On the other hand, Colin’s reassignment will create new challenges for an already difficult role as a centralized service in a truly decentralized organization. At a company where credibility is so important, Colin will have to redeem himself to be effective.

But Pat McGovern is not a spiteful man. I wouldn’t find it surprising at all if Crawford gets reassigned yet again when his skills make sense in another context at the company. Chad Dickerson insightfully identified the guiding hand behind the public voices in all this:

“I don’t know the inside scoop of what happened at PC World, but you can bet that Pat McGovern was in the mix, empowering people like Bob Carrigan to make the right decision in the end. In the news cycle, this might seem like a flash-in-the-pan story about journalism, but for me, it’s a story about respect and good business in the long term. Hats off to IDG and Pat McGovern.”

Agreed, Chad. Well done, Pat, Bob and Harry.

Here’s more on the story:

InfoWorld to close magazine business

Rex Hammock and Valleywag tip us off to Sam Whitmore’s MediaSurvey piece on the closure of InfoWorld’s magazine operation.


Though still rumor at this point, the news doesn’t surprise me one bit. The “enterprise fleet”, as former IDG President Pat Kenealy once descibed the combo of InfoWorld, Networkworld, Computerworld, and the CXO titles, was a crowded space within the company not to mention amongst the amazingly dense collection of print titles across the market at places like CMP, Ziff, etc.

When I was at InfoWorld, there were countless discussions about how to work together and compete with Computerworld, a “sister” publication that operates in Boston. We found a nice complementary relationship online where InfoWorld focused on products and Computerworld focused on news. That position may still work for them, but they’ll have to find a way to pay for the research involved in reviewing enterprise-scale hardware and software. It ain’t cheap or easy.

If they can’t pay for it with the niche-level advertising, then everyone in the market is worse off. Somebody somewhere needs to pay InfoWorld fair market value for the analysis they have provided in the past.

Fair market value will not likely be as attractive as it used to be. It may not pay for lavish sales offsites and fat expense budgets. But the market for it is real nonetheless.

If the rumor is true, then IDG is doing a smart thing even if merely experimenting with the model for how to move entirely online for the rest of the “fleet”. Somebody had to step forward, and InfoWorld is as well positioned to make that transition as anybody.

They’ve figured out some clever ways to package and sell podcasting, screencasts, RSS, newsletters and lead generation programs even if only as a loss leader for larger bundles of ad impressions.

They need to continue the progression and start baking their valuable data and services into strategic distribution points (how about IDG’s 300 other web sites around the world to start…?) and find ways to integrate their offline events business into the online experience as a form of collaboration, social networking and participation.

It seems to me that they are better off (at least a little) than the San Francisco Chronicle where the Editor-in-Chief is waving a white flag:

I’m hearing rumors that the San Francisco Chronicle is in big trouble. Apparently, Phil Bronstein, the editor-in-chief, told staff in a recent “emergency meeting” that the news business “is broken, and no one knows how to fix it.”

My fingers are crossed for the InfoWorld guys. And it’s hard not to feel bad for them, despite failing to value their star performer, Jon Udell, who left recently for Microsoft.

IDG has been a deer in the headlights of the Internet 18-wheeler for years. I can imagine this is the first of many similar moves that will happen this year across the whole print market.

Did Infoworld just get slaughtered or saved? And who will be next?

UPDATE: Rafat Ali of PaidContent says this is no rumor. He added, “The worst thing: the staff internally didn’t know about this until this story came out.” Yikes.

SFGate’s Tech Chronicles says, “The announcement is due out Monday.”

Scott Karp observes, “there’s a big gap between a B2B magazine making the transition [to an online-only publishing business] and a local newspaper making it across the chasm. But we’ve got to start somewhere.”

Shel Israel looks back on InfoWorld the magazine with nostalgia, “It was a must-read for the entire IT industry every Monday morning…The death of this publication does not surprise me, but it also does not make me particularly happy.”

Jim Forbes runs through InfoWorld’s editorial history, “In its more than 20-year life, this magazine has been the launchpad for several notable computer journalists including Stewart Alsop, Maggie Canon, John Dvorak, Jonathan Sacks, Ziff Brother’s Investment counselor Michael Miller, PBS’ Mark Stephens (who left InfoWorld with the name of the magazine’s fictional field editor and gossip columnist, Robert Cringely) as well as New York Times technology journalists Laurie Flynn and John Markoff.” He leaves out influential and talented journalists like Steve Gillmor, Jon Udell, Eric Knorr, and current EIC Steve Fox.

PR 2.0 blogger Brian Solis adds, “Knowing Steve Fox and Ephraim Schwartz personally, they will ensure that it continues to be a top information source for IT professionals who rely on qualified news and hands-on reviews.”

Jon Udell offers an empathetic shoulder, “as someone who’s loved and lost a magazine, I just want to say to my friends there who were blindsided and are losing sleep over this: Been there, done that, it’s no fun, good luck.”

John Battelle notes the operating cost savings of going online-only but recognizes the challenge ahead, “When I was running The Standard, InfoWorld was a sister publication, and a good one at that. I really hope the publication thrives online, but its owner, IDG, will have to take painful measures to make it relevant in a world where coverage is owned by online pubs and blogs already deep in the flow…Good luck, guys.”

Tom Murphy hates the blogosphere coverage so far, “News that the print issue of InfoWorld is no more, while not a terrible shock, is very sad. Of course what’s sadder may be the cacophony of Web 2.0 folks pointing their fingers and shouting ‘I told you so’….”. I’m sure this post isn’t helping with that, though that’s not my intent here. Sorry if that’s what it sounds like I’m saying.

David Churbuck says this move fits with IDG’s long term strategy, “it’s not a big surprise, nor, does it mean anything especially dire or negative about the ongoing strength of the InfoWorld franchise online. I was at IDG two years ago, I knew its managers and editors, and the plan at IDG was to go hard in the direction of online at all possible velocity.”

InfoWorld contributor Phil Windley assesses the personnel moves, “Steve Fox, InfoWorld’s Editor-in-Chief has said that very few layoffs will occur since most people will simply work on the online version or the events side of the business (a big focus lately). I suspect those let go will be people who’s expertise is in Quark and other print-only skills.”

UPDATE 2: InfoWorld EIC Steve Fox makes the announcement formal on the Techwatch blog, “Yes, the rumors are true. As of April 2, 2007, InfoWorld is discontinuing its print component. No more printing on dead trees, no more glossy covers, no more supporting the US Post Office in its rush to get thousands of inky copies on subscribers’ desks by Monday morning (or thereabouts). The issue that many of you will receive in your physical mailbox next week — vol. 29, issue 14 — will be the last one in InfoWorld’s storied 29-year history.”

IDG’s Colin Crawford puts the news into perspective amongst several intentional and determined moves down this path, “Recently InfoWorld’s revenue has been predominantly driven by its online and events business. Print no longer is the major product line at InfoWorld. So while the closure of a 27-year print publication is somewhat newsworthy, it is also a natural step in a plan that was put in place 2 years ago”

InfoWorld.com GM Virginia Hines explains how the transition unfolded up to this point, “Over a year ago, we began sharply differentiating the web business from the magazine with a focus on the Web 2.0 cornerstones of community, multimedia, and interactivity. Once we started building those three principles into our web presence the result was so much more compelling and engaging for advertisers and audience alike that the ink-on-paper magazine version paled in comparison. ”

Paul McNamara of InfoWorld’s sister publication Networkworld worries about the future of other IDG publications, “Network World will continue to produce a print edition for the foreseeable future, I am told. In general, I no longer make predictions about the future of print magazines and newspapers, although, I suppose if you were to read the handwriting, you’d find it not on the wall but online.”

IDG President Bob Carrigan adds that IDG has no plans to eliminate any other print titles, but “the trends are not good for print . . . we’re quickly moving to a place where print is not going to be the predominant revenue stream for us.”

IDG’s private-label CPC ad system

Most publishers are either looking to capitalize on the CPC text link advertisement bidding concept or they already have a plan for implementing something in this space.

IDG found their private-label CPC bidding tool solution with Quigo, a competitor of smaller ad services companies such as IndustryBrains and Kaboodle. The system they created together is called “TechWords“. It’s a contextually-placed text link ad unit that runs across IDG’s portfolio of tech sites (or most of it, anyhow) in which advertisers can bid for placement.

This is exactly the right way to reinforce your brand as a publisher rather than water down your marketing potential through a larger mostly blind ad network. As Joe Wikert put it:

“Why should Google have all the fun? … Kudos to IDG for proving that disintermediation is alive and well! I’m surprised we’re not seeing more and more of this popping up, at least on the sites that are part of a larger network within one parent organization.”

If I sell complex IT equipment such as enterprise database systems, I’m going to have better luck reaching potential customers and converting them to sales by advertising through a brand that talks to people about databases than I will by blasting links out into the wild hoping they stick. And I should be willing to pay more for that opportunity.

…Or at least that’s what IDG is counting on.

Of course, IDG already uses IndustrBrains for basically the same thing which has proven to work pretty well. The problem is that IndustryBrains requires some manpower to build and retain the advertiser base. This has a cost which gets passed back to the publisher. Publishers usually have a sales force in place that would rather take those commissions than share that revenue with a service provider.

What IDG is about to learn, I think, is that you want your sales force spending time developing relationships and coming up with higher value opportunities with the heavy-hitting marketers rather than dialing for dollars with smaller CPC marketers. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if they plan to hire a classifieds sales team to operate this…and then you have the overhead costs of paying, training and managing people. There goes your margin.
Also, this is yet another ad unit on an already densely covered page. You’re not going to increase your revenue cap by meaningful numbers by squeezing a few more text links on the page.

There’s a lot of future potential when you have a closer relationship with your advertisers like this, regardless of the ad platform. I’m hoping they start working on ways to leverage TechWords into something that will support the next generation media models such as mashups and other syndication models. If nothing else, testing out the concept is really important at this stage in the game. I think we’ll see more and more media companies doing this kind of thing soon.

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