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Tino Mantella, TAG's president, blogs about about relevant and interesting challenges and opportunities within the technology industry. http://tag.portblogs.com/TinoMantella

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The Collapse of the Print Publication?

Posted by: Amanda Shook on July 17, 2007 at 3:39PM EST

I have joined the world of the bloggers-sphere. We wanted to create a place to espouse TAG thoughts, and in return, hear from lots of people with far more knowledge and wisdom about technology than I have. My hope is that in addition to doing our best to stay “contemporary,” this initiative will give new insights to TAG staff, blog participants and me. How am I doing so far? Has anyone learned anything yet? Of course not, but I do plan to be on the receiving end of learning nearly all the time.

So here goes – I read an interesting article on Forbes.com today that referred to the “Tech Boom and Media Bust.” According to this article, Red Herring Magazine (which I subscribed to in the past) has three days to pay the rent or “get out.” Yep, they were hit with an eviction notice. The story goes on to say that the NASDAQ is hitting all-time highs, but many traditional forms of media are struggling. They didn’t mention that my home town paper (for the ten years I was in Chicago) had to sell to Sam Zell. And the Chicago Tribune is even selling the Cubs. The Cubs….the most beloved team in baseball (that should stir up some comment if you are a Braves fan)! Blogging gets a big play in this article and Caulfield goes on to compare costs for a one-third page in a magazine with a rate base of 600,000 for $27,500 or pay $21,000 for 600,000 impressions for an ad on TechCrunch.

I think you get the picture. So, my question to anyone out there listening is, “Where are we heading in regards to how people will view information?” Will there be any newspapers or magazines left standing twenty years from now? Chris Anderson had some interesting thoughts in The Long Tail. Given that he is managing editor of Wired, I found myself wondering if he was not predicting his magazine’s own demise (Or did I miss something?).

Okay, so that’s it for my first blog. Please, please, respond, so I can feel like I didn’t waste five minutes of my time (just kidding, it took a little longer than that). Now, if you are not a member you can only read and comment about this stuff. So sign up if you have something to say on one of our community blogs (or sign up any way, because I want everyone to be a TAG member).

PS….I expect to blog every couple of weeks and may not come back to this particular story. I think I am going to talk about Americans and why they don’t live as long, on average, as some third world countries…but who knows…

(4) Comments

Posted by: Margi Berbari on July 19, 2007 3:42PM EST

Tino,
I just read the same article today and my firm (HotWire Marketing) is in the process of researching the viablility of using blogs in B2B technology marketing. So far it seems like it's more useful in consumer markets - people are so busy and don't seem to be taking the time to regularly update their blogs. But I do see the relationship in the demise of the traditional print - it's following the same trend of all print material as we move toward electronic and now the "third screen."

Posted by: Bill Bentley on July 19, 2007 4:47PM EST

Tino,

A big mistake that everybody always makes when seeing trends is to extrapolate them to infinity. Anyone who has ever studied data knows that extrapolating at all is dangerous. For anyone who isn't familiar with that term, it means "projecting the trend line beyond the data and assuming the current trend will continue." Current trends NEVER continue unabated.

We live in a dynamic world full of people and companies who make decisions every day about what to do. When something changes, we adapt. That adaptation changes the system and therefore the extrapolation of past trends suddenly becomes meaningless because the system just changed. A classic example of this is the extrapolation of traffic patterns in New York City in the early 1800's. The city was considered to be destined to fail because at the current growth rate of traffic, in 30 years the daily accumulation of horse manure would be greater than the ability of the residents to shovel it into the ocean and they would all suffocate in it. Nobody could predict the future invention of the gasoline powered automobile which would make horses unnecessary to pull carriages. Of course it was the very limitations of the horse and buggy that prompted clever people to look for alternatives.

Will print media become extinct? I doubt it. Will it change a lot? Of that I have no doubt. The demise of paper documents has been predicted for decades but the consumption of paper has just continued to go up despite those predictions. A quick web scan for paper trends indicates that while it's no paper dot com, paper use is continuing to rise. Why? Things are still being printed but they are being printed by different people in different places. Paper is still an incredibly versatile medium. I just returned from a plane flight where I read six Wall Street Journals. The web isn't on the plane yet and even if it were, it's easier to read a print document than a screen.

There is no doubt that the print media is in the midst of a tsunami of change and some will become extinct but others will thrive as they learn to adapt to new ways of reaching audiences. I'm disgusted with most media forms as having degenerated into watered down sound bites of content surrounded by tidal waves of ads. In my opinion they deserve the fate they are facing because they have failed to provide quality content. Readers quit them by the millions because there isn't enough content left to hold their interest. Change that fact and adapt and things won't look so bleak.

Bill Bentley

Posted by: Shea Ellison on July 19, 2007 7:01PM EST

Tino,

I think there are deeper issues at stake here. I rarely read any blogs although I'm on the Web 15 hours or more per day. Blogs in my opinion are the electronic version of the 'gossip fence' or 'water cooler'. It's all unscripted, off-the-cuff, opinions - of which everyone has one or more.

To me, for the most part blogs are a waste of my precious time. It's primarily for those people who aren't extremely busy or people simply looking for a distraction from the stresses in business and life.

This is just my opinion.

Shea

Posted by: Tino Mantella on July 31, 2007 8:21AM EST

Thanks for your opinion on the future of print as it relates to other forms of mass communication. I personally don't believe that print publications will disappear, but I do think consolidation as well as decline will continue. I don't have the stats but am sure that the younger generations will not be inclined to read the newspaper like my generation does/did. It's an online world.
Regarding the value of blogging. I do hope to use my blog to generate valuable information for the TAG community. For example, I will be soliciting input regarding Tag's strategic choices, in hopes of creating a more comprehensive plan. Stay tuned...