Part 1 coverage here.
I grew up reading business magazines: Fortune, Business Week, Economist and to a lesser extent Forbes. Then the Web’s explosion got me to read Fast Company, Business 2.0, Red Herring and company, so I was looking forward to panel #2 with:
- David Carey, publisher of Portfolio (Conde Nast’s $120M startup)
As a web guy, I wonder how long before Portfolio becomes simply known as Portolio.com. In other words, will Conde Nast drop the print for the web alone? I doubt that will happen in months, or even years… but at some point, will it really be sustainable to have a print magazine?
If anyone can do it, it’s Conde Nast, but this is almost like trying to make the globe spin in the opposite direction… and Carey knows it: “we’re a resource-rich, private media company and do things in our way.”
What do we read into the changes at Portfolio, asks Ali. “Every facet of our company is subject to scrutiny. Out of 150 people, 8 have left, but Gawker won’t look at the 142 that remained… but the 8 that left.”
Who knew Gawker would have more of an impact of Portfolio’s feeling of self-worth than Portfolio would have on Gawker’s, I wonder?
What’s the timeline to gauge success?
“A decade, that’s the metric used within the company, we’ve had success according to our goals: $20M net ad revenue, 700 pages of ads. We’re the only media company that likes to be in the magazine business… ”
He is right, some people will look at Portfolio cynically no matter what, and others welcome it. As a consumer, I love it.
- Susan Clark, The Economist
Clark describes The Economist not as a business magazine per se but a current affair one that reaches “a well and broadly informed audience which grew 15% in circulation and 22% growth in ad pages.”
The Economist does not have any global editions: one size fits all across all issues across the partner… is that good or bad I wonder? I don’t know what the answer is, but Clark stresses that it adds to the brand credibility and helps to know that an executive in NY reads the same thing that an executive in Hong Kong would.
“We have a high end audience, they read out of choice, not to get ahead in business.”
Interestingly, 85% get The Economist at home, “our readers open a bottle of wine, read it on a Saturday…” get plastered (Ali added the last part). I used to, but I didn’t uncork any wine, it’s just not appropriate to drink in the john.
I canceled my subscription, maybe the wine would have helped.
The content on TheEconomist.com is available for free for 365 days, then goes behind a wall, which in my humble opinion is backwards for SEO purposes.
- Keith Fox, Business Week
Will digital ever catch up to loss of print revenue? Yes, Keith Fox believes in BusinessWeek.com but liquid content is key. Business Week is “doing better than ever” though when I canceled my subscription (see a trend folks?) the magazine seemed pretty thin… but maybe, once again, that was the lack of wine…
- John Coten, Mansueto ventures
Fast Company and Inc were in bad shape when Mansueto acquired the brands, but revenues up 30% across brands in past year… Inc. for entrepreneur, Fast Company is for emerging creative class in business, they share different values from others in business.
Success of Mansueto’s assets “not as dependent on success of category, we don’t have huge and large audiences to sustain… we’re not all things to all people like other large magazines. Back then, the business community was an easily identified market, not anymore.”
So, so true. Which tied well with Ali’s question on how much or how little magazines should have community features, particularly since magazines are all about a community of readers with a shared interest.
Will WSJ go free? Read part 3.
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