ClearContent

The LA Times runs one of the few remaining stand-alone book sections in a daily newspaper. (The others are in The San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Times and San Diego Union-Tribune.)

Dwindling ad budgets are eating away at many of the unique features that only some newspapers offer. I can only hope that most of this specialized content survives the transition to a working digital revenue model. More details here…

I came across some interesting information at Colin Crawford’s blog on IDG’s continued transformation from a print publisher to an online publisher. Colin is VP, New Business Development and Operations at IDG. Aside from research and expos, IDG is a publisher of technology industry magazines targeting audiences from the B2B market to the Consumer Technology segment.

Colin shared some numbers that are quite telling of where segments of the magazine print industry are shifting:

In the US, our online revenue now accounts for over 35% of our total US publishing revenues. Next year, for many brands online revenues will be greater than print revenues, if fact they already are at some of our key brands and by 2009 – approximately 50% of IDG’s US revenues will come from online.

With its shift away from print publishing, IDG has also retooled it’s business mission:

Going forward IDG Communications will define itself as a web centric information company complemented by expos, events and print publications.

Colin also points out that new competitors exist, which weren’t part of the print-only world:

In the past media organizations controlled content and pushed it out to subscribers, today’s media has to deal with a world of social connections, networking and collective actions enabled by the Internet.

And he also has the wisdom to see his audience is changing along with their demands for how they want their content delivered and their need to participate:

We have to become facilitators as much as content creators – our brands are trusted, they have quality content and loyal audiences – these are our competitive advantages but we’ll only hold onto those assets if we truly listen to our communities and provide appropriate environments for user initiated conversations and user created content.

IDG’s new strategy should be a signal to all print publishers (no matter the reader audience) that the shift is happening. It may not be clear what the path forward should be or what business models will work best with each publisher or publishing segment, but now is the time to start preparing for the shift by ensuring content is “repurposed” for the digital world and exploring new methods and platforms for content delivery.