Posts from ‘Print Media’
The $100 Million Dream
It may be too early to label Arianna Huffington as a successful entrepreneur, but she certainly has made a name for herself in the online media space. Today comes confirmation that The Huffington Post has secured an additional $25 million in venture capital with an assumed company value of about $100 million.
The New York Times is out this afternoon with its October 2008 advertising figures and the numbers are anything but pretty. Advertising in their news media group plunged 17.2% over the same month last year. Internet revenues rose 5.3% but were tempered by “continued weakness in online recruitment advertising.”
Another popular title will soon be absent from newsstands and mailboxes. PC Magazine, a pioneer in the technology magazine space, announced it will cease publishing a print edition.
News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch believes that journalists themselves are to blame for the media’s current woes. He cited new technology and bloggers as pieces to the puzzle that will lead the industry back to a successful path, as long as they re-establish a bond of trust with their readers.
Is the downturn in the fortunes of the newspaper business in America a result of their very design? While many suggest that the quality or nature of the content may be the biggest challenge, others point to the attack on the classified advertising business model. But blogger Mark Cahill suggests it may be the newspaper’s clumsy “user interface” that is to blame.
As a huge fan of what Rafat Ali has done with PaidContent.org over the years, I was dismayed to read Lauren Rich Fine’s commentary today that exhorted newspapers to tell consumers how to consume content.
With the Christian Science Monitor and US News & World Report curbing print production in favor of online publishing, some media powerhouses may be misunderstanding the nature of the current problem.
New York City’s Economic Development Corporation stands poised to hire a consulting firm to recommend ways to help the media industry grow in coming years. The government will seek to succeed where much of private media appears to be failing at the moment.
We’ve all seen movie trailers, and most of us have seen promotional TV spots for books, particularly from high-profile authors (John Grisham comes to mind, as does James Patterson). But a new marketing technique in the literary world takes the ideas and combines them, in hopes of reaching audiences traditional spots might not.
This week the Associated Press made a huge splash in the blogosphere by filing seven takedown notices against the Digg-like social news community the Drudge Retort. According to an article in Monday’s New York Times, the AP will “define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.” Christopher Lynn explores the conflict’s historical roots, and the reaction of the blogosphere thus far.
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