Cutting Web Staffs, Prelude to the Titles Themselves??

What a mind-boggling development according to The New York Observer. Perfect-bound mags who finally got around to building their web teams - are now laying them off to bolster their struggling print gorillas. It's a head-shaking turn of events, I know. But not totally unexpected. The magazines referenced, Condé Nast's Portfolio and Time Inc.'s Fortune, were facing steep cutbacks -- and the web staffers were seemingly the most expendable.

Allegedly a publisher at Condé Nast was heard to opine: “You’re never going to get the traffic that really matters. So it’s a traffic thing, but also, how do you monetize the traffic that you have? It’s impossible.”

Impossible. Monetizing content is impossible. My second head-shaking moment. Is monetizing content on the web really impossible? See, call me an optimist but I don't think so. I just don't think these publishers have found the right mechanism to monetize their goods. Or maybe their magazines don't really add that much value. When you think about some titles, they are a nothing more than a collection of glitzy ads between glossy covers. In that case, yes, i think monetizing on the web is going to be difficult.

I was reading the comments to this article (an occupational hazard these days, as more vision and thought seem to exist in the comments than the stories themselves), and the rabble didn't let me down.

Skyrocketing eyeball numbers are great, but when there is no meaningful revenue attached to it, it's a parasite. As long as aggregators can take all that work for free and sell search ads - the only type that are working - the environment will not improve. -- Anonymous


Publisher's like Time Inc have no solid digital strategy. They are all mostly analog players lead by analog CEOs, in a digital world. -- Shines

This is very shortsighted. I can't tell you how many print magazines I have become interested in because of their online version. -- Anonymous

There are several issues at play here:

1. There are just too many magazines to sustain the number of readers: an allt-time high of 26,140 titles in the US and Canada according to a 2006 Print Council Study
   
2. Newsrooms are still circa 20th Century: having unique staff per dissemination channel. Guilds, culture and an unified infrastructure are to blame. Anyone heard of a single newsroom to serve multiple channels??
   
3. Monetization stagnation. The banner ad. Sheesh what a cliché. Can not any of these big properties figure out how to derive value with their content besides a banner ad? Maybe they need to stop navel-gazing and see how their content actually helps their industry. If it turns out it doesn't .... well, maybe you need to rethink your content model.
4. It may be that the can monetize their content -- they just can't motivate their sales forces.

My New Year's predictions are a tad early, but I foresee a great reduction in titles. And for you bargain shoppers, there should be some great content at firesale prices -- since those publishers don't really see much value in their assets.