New Media

Read more about the article Is Print Advertising Dead?

Is Print Advertising Dead?

Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke
Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke

Check out @themediaisdying on Twitter for a glimpse at the convulsions of an industry that’s either at death’s door or, for the more optimistically inclined, in the midst of a violent but necessary transformation.

I’ve worked in magazine publishing for 15 years now — consumer, B2B and non-profit — and as has been noted pretty much everywhere recently, 2008 was an ugly year.  Mass consumer and B2B brands are getting hit the hardest, but even local and niche brands with strong subscriber bases are getting hammered by this perfect storm, and surprisingly to almost no one with any sense some people, the Internet has turned out to not be the magic bullet it was proclaimed to be.

(In fact, in many cases, online publishing is effectively “trading dollars for pennies“, and the economic fallout that’s affected print advertising is undoubtedly going to affect online advertising, too. ETA: It already has.)

Flip through the most recent issues of your favorite magazines and you’ll probably notice they’re a little bit lighter than they used to be. Less editorial content; thinner paper; deeply discounted, sometimes desperately worded subscription offers.

Almost all of them likely have less ads (and in many cases less relevant ads) than they used to, too.

I was cautiously optimistic that the major damage might be limited to 2008, and 2009 could be a rebuilding year for most brands on flat revenues, with some going under and a few even pulling off a Miami Dolphins-style turnaround, but 13 days into the new year, it looks like things still haven’t quite hit bottom.

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Read more about the article Blowing smoke, breaking mirrors

Blowing smoke, breaking mirrors

The Internet is Broken!

A couple of jobs back, when I still worked only in marketing, I used to joke around with an ebiz friend about which of us had the bigger “smoke and mirrors” job.  I developed media kits, sell sheets and emails to promote our wares, and fought with our emedia department tooth and nail on developing the right tools for us to sell to our specific market; meanwhile, he was focused on finding new emedia products that worked on a corporate level and which the emedia department would have to implement and support across multiple markets.  Neither of us had any solid metrics for what we did to really determine our effectiveness, while the sales reps depended on both of us to do our jobs well in order to effectively navigate the magical revenue stream that runs through cyberspace.

Except, of course, there is no such magical stream, as many publishers are now finding out.

Seth Godin, of whom I’m quickly becoming a disciple, isn’t a big fan of the emedia=revenue mindset that’s driving a lot of initiatives in the publishing world these days, but he’s not simply a naysayer with a soapbox, instead positing a different approach to emedia that, in his opinion, leads organically to revenue…when it’s deserved:

First, the market and the internet don’t care if you make money. That’s important to say. You have no right to make money from every development in media, and the humility that comes from approaching the market that way matters. It’s not “how can the market make me money” it’s “how can I do things for this market.” Because generally, when you do something for an audience, they repay you. The Grateful Dead made plenty of money. Tom Peters makes many millions of dollars a year giving speeches, while books are a tiny fraction of that. Barack Obama used ideas to get elected, book royalties are just a nice side effect. There are doctors and consultants who profit from spreading ideas. Novelists and musicians can make money with bespoke work and appearances and interactions. And you know what? It’s entirely likely that many people in the chain WON’T make any money. That’s okay. That’s the way change works.

Amen.

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Read more about the article Online vs. Print Reality Check

Online vs. Print Reality Check

Buried in a glowing American Journalism Review article about the success of The Politico -- a politics-only news website that launched a couple of years ago and is getting 25 million page views/month -- is the fact that 60% of its revenue comes from its laser-targeted, thrice-weekly 27,000 circ print edition, without which, the site would  "be losing catastrophic amounts of money." THE PLIGHT OF POLITICO -- AND EVERYONE ELSE. The success of Politico actually seems like an incredibly discouraging sign for the media. Here you have this forward-thinking, primarily virtual venture to create a political news organization that marries…

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Read more about the article BroadAcres’ Bustling Business A Boon?

BroadAcres’ Bustling Business A Boon?

1455 Broad Street
1455 Broad Street

Taxes are pretty much Greek to me, especially property taxes, but as I understand them, a viable commercial tax base is critical for keeping residential property taxes down and is theoretically one of the reasons moving forward on the redevelopment of Bloomfield Center is such a critical issue. (Assuming, of course, that the plan isn’t loaded with the kinds of tax breaks and loopholes that end up costing taxpayers MORE money.) The New Jersey League of Municipalities has a nice primer, A SHORT AND SIMPLE GLIMPSE AT THE PROPERTY TAX IN NEW JERSEY, that is somewhat helpful, leaving me feeling mildly clueless instead of completely dumbfounded.

With taxes on the brain — Bloomfield Life, I think, had a recent article about the township-wide assessment happening this Fall that has me a little nervous — I figure it has to be a good thing to see that Prism Captial Partners is having success luring new tenants to their BroadAcres Office Park in northern Bloomfield, that they paid $52m for in 2006 and are in the process of an extensive renovation and upgrading of its grounds and infrastructure.

Four Leases Signed at BroadAcres

BLOOMFIELD, NJ-Prism Capital Partners has secured 27,000 sf of leases at its BroadAcres Office Park here. Four companies, three current tenants and one new occupant, have committed to space at the 380,000-sf, class A campus…

Kingsbridge Financial Group has relocated its headquarters from Seacaucus to 1455 Broad St., where it will occupy 5,000 sf on a five-year lease. Diversified Cos., Senior Financial Solutions and Kingsbridge were all represented by Prism Capital Partners principal Edwin Cohen, who also represented Prism, the owners of the property…

Rental rates for BroadAcres are listed as $25.50 per sf for 1455 Broad St. and $23.50 per sf for 200 and 300 Broadacres Dr. The property has seen a considerable amount of leasing activity in the past few months.

“We’re encouraged by the activity,” says Cohen. “Brokers are responding well to the improvements they’ve seen throughout the complex.”

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Read more about the article Radio Silence & Recommended Reading

Radio Silence & Recommended Reading

I’m flying down to Virginia tomorrow morning for a long weekend and will be avoiding certain parts of the internet (guess which?) as much as possible while I’m there. Here’s some several-times-daily sites I’ll be missing out on that I highly recommend you bookmark and check regularly:

Andrew Sullivan:  My favorite blog of them all, hands-down, Sullivan is on vacation but has a few guest bloggers filling in who are doing good work in his absence. Hilzoy’s “Dear Chris Matthews: Please Do Your Job” is a must-read for those sick and tired of the “Obama’s inexperienced” meme.

First Read: MSNBC is my cable news network of choice as I find them to offer, relatively speaking, the most balanced election coverage and least overtly biased commentators, particularly Keith Olbermann, Mika Brzezinski, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, and, believe it or not, Joe Scarborough. Their political blog often has solid analysis and interesting nuggets from the campaign trail and doesn’t feel the need to post about every single non-story that comes up throughout the day.

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