The New Media is not immune to the common illnesses of the general market. It just gets diagnosed a bit sooner and with more information.
There is no way to hide from a slowdown in the economy. Here is the chart prepared by PubMatic indicating a downturn in online ad revenues for the bigger players. And good news for the smaller publishers.
And the good advice Rafeev Goel gives in this video is just basic marketing 101.
But as usual with any downturn, there are lots of opportunities popping up. This is usually the time when those with the money can grab market share. And often a good time to start a new business.
Big TV buys small online tech company. Could be a good match, as both old and new media struggle with what’s next. The deal will include CNet’s Web sites — News.com, TV.com, Mp3.com, MySimon and GameSpot.
If the medium is the message, you might assume that technology publications would most comfortably exist online. How could they be prescient in the ancient medium of print?
And once you bring the bottom line into the equation, you have to ask — what took them so long?
Well, according to this NYTimes article the day has finally arrived. I.D.G. (International Data Group), the largest publisher of technology newspapers and magazines has declared that their online ad revenue has finally surpassed their print revenue.
“The excellent thing, and good news, for publishers is that there is life after print — in fact, a better life after print,” said Patrick J. McGovern, the founder and chairman of I.D.G.
And Stewart Alsop, a journalist turned venture capitalist, was the editor in chief of InfoWorld in the 1990s, when it was thick with ads and its editorial staff was at its peak. “Technology publishing just happens to be at the point of this whole transformation of media,” Mr. Alsop said. “What’s happening at I.D.G. is a fairly accurate map for every other publishing organization. Get over it, it’s going to happen.”
At the gathering of ad execs from the American Association of Advertising Agencies the whining that has been prevalent for almost a decade continued. And this was their ‘leadership conference.’
Some of these folks used to be the renegades of marketing, and media, the ones who had clients quaking in their boots at the audacity of their brash minds.
And in the blink of an eye they have become the old fogies, seemingly unwilling and unable to change. They are aware that the landscape has radically changed, all the landmarks are unreliable, and more importantly, the cash is not flowing from the usual spigots.
But wait, there’s hope. It appears that ad spending is not doing so badly. At least for the holding companies. Those clever creatures could read the spigots and started to acquire new media agencies to balance the decline of the old media agencies. They call it organic growth — their single digits. While the online media lobs along in plump doubles.
Observing the decline of the old, and the birth of the new media, as the formerly trapped audience recks havoc on busniess models. The audience itself is now 'broadcast.'
