Blogging Distractions

That's great news: about your wedding, I mean -- not about the story that got "managed" so much that who ever managed it got it managed out of the magazine. As a loyal blog reader, I hereby grant you permission to be totally distracted from anything online until after you are home from the honeymoon.

Typical comment from a journalist still wedded (groan) to the dead-trees business model.
Does it matter where your story gets published, as long as people read it?
Like it or not, BW's days as a paper publication are numbered so you should stop thinking of online as a second-class medium. I gave up subscribing to the paper version years ago and the only reason it still survives is because a sufficient number of BW advertisers still like the look and feel of offset four-colour printing.
Get with it and drop the prejudices.

Thanks Rex!

Geoff, I knew someone would say that. It's predictable. Shouldn't you judge someone by what they do rather what you think they think? I write online, I blog, I do podcasts, I do onlne video and yes, I write for the magazine. I don't think that's that wedded to one medium.

The point is when you write a story for print, there's a lot more production involved and so it takes more time.

And yep, I like magazine articles, for different reasons than I like blog posts or podcasts. But I'm not one of the crowd that thinks that they poof, disappear. There will be a lot fewer, but still magazines will be around.

Congrats on your wedding Heather. It's a tough but fun ride.

re Geoff's comment, many magazine will go under, but not because print is dead, it's because micro niches are alive and ruling the online publishing world.

In fashion, however, print will probably die the slowest and the least. There is something tactile about holding a fashion magazine. The glossy images cannot be duplicated online. Content is quicker, but the experience of gazing at beautiful photography in a mag will not be duplicated the web.

Geoff, about a million people receive the dead-tree version every week, and many pass it on to others. I don't know how many people click on our online articles. Yes, we all know the issues facing print, but the million+ is nothing to sneeze at.

"Though consumers appear to be losing interest in physical newspapers, they are visiting newspaper websites more often: Nielsen/NetRatings data indicate a 5.3% increase in site visits in Q1 2007."

I don't know if the data for BW is any better or worse, but its now clear that the centre of gravity has shifted irreversibly in this business. The most interesting editorial developments -- as well as the new investment and jobs -- are happening online.

Its great that BW has 1m readers for the paper version, but McGraw Hill is not a charity, and as advertiser interest in the printed product declines, so too will the pagination. I have experienced at first hand the ruthless commmerial logic of print ad/editorial ratios and I hope neither of you suffer a similar fate.

Looking on the bright side, the great thing about online is that you are freed from ad/ed ratios and have a raft of new ways to rake in money and produce articles that keep readers coming back.

Online doesn't have to be lightweight, first-person or second-rate, although I know that is how many news rooms still see it. Just look at what the Philadelphia Inquirer did with Blackhawk Down. A truly ground-breaking piece of online journalism.

Steve: "I don't know how many people click on our online articles."

If I was in your shoes, I'd find out.

Oh, I almost forgot. Heather, have a great wedding!

Heather, congratulations!

Geoff, while you have a valid point that print media is going south, Business Week's reputation and innovation will keep it breathing. In fact, I had stopped my subscription in '05 only to renew it a year later, for I was missing out on the ads. The events and services advertised in the print are something I, as a CEO, am looking for and it that takes too much time finding that on Google alone. Additionally, the pleasure of sitting down on the sofa or Adirondack on a Saturday morning reading Jon Fine's ranting about old-media is something that you can't, ironically, get from new-media.