Farewell InfoWorld
Email This Post
Print This Post
I may be premature in declaring the demise of InfoWorld, but one must wonder at the competitive dynamics at play in the publishing world, especially one that covers such a fast moving segment of commerce.
For those on vacation of overly medicated, InfoWorld has decided to cease print publication. All their usual content will continue to be produced, but will be available online and via email blasts. From a cost-savings standpoint, not printing and mailing 180,000 copies of a magazine is significant. Given the nature of content management systems, email-blast subsystems, and RSS syndication, there seems to be little to lose. Given global slippage in print readership, stopping the presses might be wise, and tree huggers everywhere will breath easier.
However, there is one thing that print does well that online does not — force people to encounter information. Regardless of the printed media, thumbing through printed pages causes the reader to trip over concepts, products, and opinions they would not normally seek. In our hurried times,
we tend to hone in on the information we perceive to be important, and thanks to the Internet, we can ignore what is entirely unimportant.
Allegedly.
Technology is all about solutions to problems, and technology marketing is
about making people aware of problems and solutions. Magazines like
InfoWorld were valuable for many reasons, two of which were that we encountered
lucid descriptions of problems that we either did not know we had, or for which
we felt solutions were lacking. We all have turned pages in these
publications while trudging on a treadmill, of killing time before a meeting,
and had "AH HA!" moments.
Where will the "AH HA" come from in the future? Sure, some will leak
through the filters we place on emailed content. You’ll encounter tangent
tidbits while doing directed searches. But we will not be slammed in the
face with new concepts as we once were. This is a loss for the consumer
… and the marketer.
This presents a new hurdle to technology marketers. We often relied on tech
publication editorial bandwidth to reach unsuspecting audiences. With this
crutch kick away, we will lean far to one side in finding target buyers.
Email lists are becoming less useful. Tradeshows are losing traction.
And now magazines are devolving. Times are hard.
This is where buzz marketing comes into focus as the same Internet that is
killing printed media is creating new channels of communications. Mapping
and influencing buzz will climb ever higher up our marketing communications
lists … because we have fewer choices. Thankfully buzz is such a strong
promotional vehicle it may well over compensate for paper.
That having been said, will the other technology trade publications prosper
through reduced competition? Let’s wait, watch, and see.
