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April 27, 2009

Conde Nast Portfolio - Sorry to See You Go

There was a tremendous amount of coverage today of the announcement that Conde Nast would soon be shuttering its Portfolio magazine.

In fact, Portfolio had not received this much ink since the news two years ago that Conde Nast planned to make a nine-figure investment in the launch of a new print product, a decision that seemed audacious, even at the time.

Others closer to the magazine business have shared their thoughts on why Portfolio failed, so I won't dwell on that part of the story. Here are a few of those comments:

Jon Fine goes back to the basics saying that Portfolio failed to engage either readers or advertisers and had the unfortunate timing to attract neither during a huge advertising contraction.

Jim Ledbetter at the Big Money, who knows a thing or two about launching a financial content product during a down market, suggests that with a smaller budget, a weekly frequency, a better website and a better editor, Portfolio might have been able to survive, had market conditions been better.

But I look at the Portfolio shutdown simply from the standpoint of a reader. I don't read a lot of magazines; in fact, Portfolio is the only consumer magazine to which I currently subscribe. I get most of my news from the web, either on my desktop or iPhone and most printed publications just seem stale by the time I read them (yes, that even applies to the New York Times I read on the subway each morning). So I certainly did not look to Portfolio for breaking news. But sometimes, you want the long form story, the kind you can get from The Economist, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and, yes, Portfolio.

I viewed Portfolio simply as pleasure reading. During its first summer, I found it to be the perfect poolside reading material. During the summer of 2007, when ad dollars were still plentiful, Portfolio had "plop value" that could compare to the weighty fashion magazines my wife would read. Portfolio hired talented writers and delivered solid investigative reporting. While many skewered Portfolio for putting Sarah Palin on the cover of its April issue, I found the Joe McGinniss article, which described how Palin's dealings with the oil companies would ensure that the $40 Billion natural gas pipeline would never be built, to be top notch.

And, of course, Portfolio hired a terrific team of bloggers, led by Felix Salmon, now at Reuters. While the print product was always more of a guilty pleasure, Felix's Market Movers blog was on my daily "must read" list.

I'm not a magazine reader and if I were to start up a new content business today, it wouldn't be in print and it wouldn't have a $100M launch (or a $10M or probably even a $1M launch). But, this summer, when I'm lounging by the pool, I'm going to miss Conde Nast Portfolio.

Barry Graubart on April 27, 2009 in Content Business, Current Affairs, Finance | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Conde Nast Portfolio, finance, magazines

April 23, 2009

Help Send Deserving Kids to Camp this Summer

As the economy continues to decline, the nonprofit sector is taking a big hit. State and municipal funds have dried up, foundations are struggling with poor investment returns and many of the big individual donors are worried about keeping their jobs.

Luckily, there are lots of ways that each of us can make a small difference. Social media and micro-donations make the process even easier.

Edelman and a few other organizations in the Chicago area are supporting the Off the Street Club (OTSC), which provides inner city kids with a summer of swimming, horseback riding and cookouts at Camp Mathieu.

So, please take a minute and make a modest donation - even $5 makes a real difference. You can donate using the ChipIn widget below (see, I told you this used social media tools).

Not sure? Visit their Facebook page and watch the brief 2 minute video.

PS - for those who were at the SIIA Twitter panel on Wednesday, this program is part of the Friday $5 Twitter Challenge from Amanda Mooney, the Edelman social media maven I mentioned.

Barry Graubart on April 23, 2009 in Current Affairs, philanthropy, social media | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Off the Street Club, OTSC, Save our Summer

April 22, 2009

Twitter for Business - SIIA Event recap

Earlier today, I moderated an SIIA panel entitled "Why Twitter Matters".

I was lucky enough to have three great panelists, which made my job really easy:
Philip Pearlman, Director at StockTwits
Jacob Harris, Senior Software Architect, New York Times
Sarah Austin, Real Time Matrix

The event was sold out, but for those who missed it (or who care to re-live it), here's the video

View Full Screen

Supporting materials including my Introduction to Twitter deck are available here.

Barry Graubart on April 22, 2009 in Content Business, Events, social media | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: NY Times, Real Time Matrix, SIIA, StockTwits, Twitter for Business, Why Twitter Matters

April 21, 2009

Stephen Colbert, Gates Foundation Team to Support Donors Choose

I spent my morning in the auditorium at Manhattan Bridges High School in Hell's Kitchen.

It was there that Stephen Colbert, along with representatives of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation came together to announce a $4.1 million grant to Donors Choose.

The "Double Your Impact" program will provide half the dollars to fund an expected 17,000 projects, which will touch 300,000 students. Qualifying projects will focus on college readiness.

Stephen Colbert, who was recently named to the board of Donors Choose, served as moderator of the event, with a panel consisting of Donors Choose Founder and CEO Charles Best, Gates Foundation director of education Vicki Phillips and Elizabeth Smith, a teacher at Manhattan Bridges, who twice has had projects funded through Donors Choose.

Donors Choose is an amazing organization. Founder Charles Best, a former Bronx social studies teacher came up with the concept in conjunction with his students. To-date, the program has funded more than 80,000 projects, impacting more than 2 million students in all 50 states.

Donors Choose blends the concept of micro-donations with transparency, control and accountability. It's an amazing model and it's a model for individual philanthropy. To explore the projects currently seeking funding, visit Donors Choose.

I caught up with founder Charles Best for a few minutes at the end of the event.

Barry Graubart on April 21, 2009 in Current Affairs, General Business, humor | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Donors Choose, Gates Foundation, micro giving, philanthropy, Stephen Colbert

April 20, 2009

Developing a Twitter Strategy

While the entertainment market has suddenly found Twitter, a number of technology, information and media businesses have been using Twitter effectively for the past 12-24 months.

This Wednesday, we will be exploring some of those success stories on a panel, sponsored by the Software & Information Industry Association. Below are some initial thoughts on a few themes that we’ll be discussing. What questions would you like us to ask? Post your questions in the comments below or send them to me @graubart.

The Twitter land rush has begun. This differs somewhat from the web land grab, which was all about URLs. On Twitter, it’s not so much your Twitter handle (though there are a bunch of spoofing efforts for brands) but more about staking out a position as a key source to follow in your domain.

Meanwhile, the Twitter ecosystem is starting to emerge. One of the ways to measure the success of a platform is the ecosystem that springs up around it. Google is a great example of this. Beyond the 300,000 advertisers who participate in AdWords and the many publishers who use AdSense to allow Google to run ads on their pages, the Google ecosystem consists of SEO consulting firms, resellers of Google Appliances and the many software consulting and integration firms who focus on the Google platform.

For Twitter, the ecosystem is just beginning to emerge. There are a growing number of third party applications to enable more efficient posting to and searching of Twitter on desktops and mobile devices. Developers have built plugins, like TwitPic, which make it easier for users to share information through Twitter. At the same time, consulting firms, PR firms and ad agencies are beginning to focus on Twitter as a critical medium. And vertical market applications like StockTwits have emerged to aggregate tweets and build communities within the Twitter universe.

Before jumping in, develop a Twitter strategy. There are numerous ways in which companies are using Twitter to help them achieve their business goals. But the first step is in defining your goals. Are you looking to use Twitter to improve customer service (like @comcastcares)? Do you wish to use Twitter as a more user-friendly version of RSS, pushing out your latest content (like @msnbc_business )? Or, are you looking to drive transactions (like @delloutlet)? Before you start tweeting, think about your specific goals, then develop an appropriate Twitter strategy in support of those goals.

These are all issues that we’ll explore in further depth at the panel discussion. If you’ve not already registered, there’s still time to do so at the SIIA website.

If you can’t participate but would like to follow along via Twitter, we’ll be using the #SIIA hashtag and you can follow the discussion here.

In advance of the panel, I’ve posted some materials, along with links to related resources.

Barry Graubart on April 20, 2009 in Content Business, social media | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: SIIA, social media, Twitter

April 18, 2009

Social Media: My Place or Yours?

The number of definitions of social media typically equals the number of people in the discussion. During the past couple of years in my role chairing the SIIA's Social Media Action Committee, I've had numerous discussions with peers about "social media". And what I've found is that the lack of clear definitions leads to frustration and confusion.

In an effort to simplify that, whenever I'm now engaged in a broad discussion of social media, I start with the question "my place or yours?" In other words, are you looking to add social media capabilities (communities, user-generated content, etc) to your existing site or are you looking for ways to play on the social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?

That one question immediately simplifies everything that follows. So, when do you look to add social media tools to your site and when do you go play on the platforms?

Think about your goals to start. Do you have an existing audience of users whom you're looking to engage? Are you trying to increase page views and time spent on your site by your existing readers? Adding social media tools to your site to enable information sharing, commenting or linking by your users can help you achieve that.

Are you looking to reach a new audience, perhaps a different demographic than you currently reach? That's where the external platforms come in. Build a Facebook widget, create a LinkedIn group or share useful information via Twitter. You'll attract new users who may otherwise not be familiar with your brand.

There are dozens of use cases for how you can help achieve your business goals through social media. But the starting point is always in defining those goals and matching them to the right sets of tools.

So, at the next industry conference, when you ask me about social media, don't be offended when I ask you "my place or yours?".

Barry Graubart on April 18, 2009 in social media | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: social media

April 13, 2009

Has friendfeed Hit the Wall?

Friendfeed never got the adoption rate that Twitter has, but the active friendfeed users were devout supporters. For a while, last year, there were nonstop threads on friendfeed, discussing why it was the superior platform to Twitter.

For those who have not used it, friendfeed shares much in common with Twitter. At it's basis, it's a microblogging platform that uses the "follower" approach to share information. But the main difference is while Twitter takes more of a broadcast approach, friendfeed has always been about real-time conversations. One of the main drawbacks to Twitter is that conversations are not threaded. In other words, if you reply to one of my Tweets, it's not easy for users to see which Tweet you responded to. You see snippets but not the full conversation. friendfeed, conversely, is all about the conversation. When you click on any friendfeed comment, you'll see the full threaded conversation. At first blush, this is a powerful advantage, but it also becomes an incredible time-suck.

Twitter is like casual dating. You can check in a few times each day for a few minutes and move on with the other activities in your life. Friendfeed is like dating that super-obsessive, ultra-needy person who doesn't seem to work or have any other full-time responsibilities. While the relationship may be just as superficial, it's completely exhausting. It seems that she is always there and when you pop in for a quick hello, you soon realize you've spent hours.

While Twitter certainly has won the mindshare battle, it seems that it's also winning the underlying war.

Friendfeed remains the communications platform of choice for many of the digerati, but there's evidence that its growth has hit a wall.

One of the early advantages to microblogging client Twhirl (from Loic LeMeur's Seesmic) was its support for both platforms. Twhirl has now been replaced by the new Seesmic desktop, which competes with TweetDeck for Twitter desktop client market share. Yet this new version of Seesmic focuses on Twitter and provides no support for friendfeed. While Seesmic may continue to support its Twhirl client, my guess is they will focus their efforts on the new desktop app, so this is a bad sign for friendfeed users.

Edelman's Steve Rubel, who spent a lot of time on both platforms last year recently indicated he's lost interest in friendfeed and now spends his time largely on Twitter.

And, even Robert Scoble, emperor of the digerati, who clearly spends much of his day on friendfeed, recently acknowledged (on friendfeed, of course) that while he receives many new followers each day on Twitter, his follower growth on friendfeedhas plateaued. According to Scoble:

"One big difference between Twitter and friendfeed is that:
People follow on Twitter. My friendfeed rates have gone way down.
I looked into a few people I've recommended. On Twitter they are getting followed at a MUCH higher rate than their friendfeed accounts are.
That's not a good trend for friendfeed, because it means that there's a much stronger power law in effect there where people like me will have more power to get content noticed than new people who come along"

So, is it the end for Friendfeed? That's hard to say. It's likely that Friendfeed will continue to exist as a niche platform for the most geeky of the social media elite, at least for a while. And, perhaps as Twitter finds itself becoming more mainstream, friendfeed will become the refuge for those who wish to avoid the more commercial aspects that are already cropping up. But at least for now, it's clear that Twitter is where the growth is and where most social media participants (at least those who want to pick one platform) should focus their time.

What do you think?

Barry Graubart on April 13, 2009 in Content Business, social media, Technology | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Friendfeed, microblogging, Scobleizer, Twitter

April 12, 2009

Where Might the Best and Brightest Go to Work?

The New York Times today has an article entitled Crisis Reshaping Wall Street as Big Banks Lose Top Talent, which spotlights the decisions some on Wall Street are making to leave the big investment banks..

This is a discussion I've been having with friends (both online and off) for much of the past year.

For those in the New York technology industry, the financial markets have been both boon and bane. They create a strong market to sell into, but they also make it much harder (and more expensive) for startups to recruit technology talent. In Silicon Valley, the decisions are between startups or the former startups who've grown up a bit. In Silicon Alley, we've had to compete with Goldman, Morgan Stanley and others who offer salaries and benefits with which startups are unable to compete.

Of course, it's not just IT and MBA students who go to Wall Street. For more than 20 years, the top graduates of law schools and various undergrad and graduate school programs have been recruited by the top investment banks.

So, if there is a shift, is that a bad thing? Personally, I think it will be healthy for the Street and certainly for other industries.

If I were starting my career today, finance would not be near the top of my list. There are so many fields undergoing transformational change where young people can make a huge impact, such as health care, energy or technology. For those who love finance, there are great opportunities with smaller firms where entrepreneurial skills can be applied. And, of course, there are public sector roles where the smart young leaders can help reshape our society.

What would be the negative impact of a brain drain on Wall Street? I think the Street can survive without the invention of new financial instruments for a few years. Meanwhile, getting the best and brightest to focus on solving the challenges of energy, healthcare, infrastructure and information technology will have a big positive impact on society.

Barry Graubart on April 12, 2009 in Current Affairs, Finance, General Business | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: jobs New York Times, Wall Street

April 07, 2009

Associated Press to Internet: Drop Dead

The Associated Press's plan to more aggressively police use of its content on the Internet seems less about saving the newspaper industry and more about justifying their own existence.

Do the AP's owner-partner newspapers really want their content removed from the Google index? How much might that reduce their traffic? Depending upon the news outlet, I'd guess Google accounts for between 25-50% of the traffic. How will those rapidly falling CPMs look when they lose half their traffic?

I realize the A.P. is in a tough spot. Newspapers rely upon its syndicated content, especially as they cut their own editorial resources. At the same time, the newspapers have pressured the A.P. to cut its fees. But the A.P.'s approach here doesn't do anything to address the long-term problem.

The problem remains that the basic business model for newspapers - that of being a near-monopoly for local advertising - is gone. The classified business has moved to Craig's List and elsewhere and it's not coming back. And the basic concept that a local auto dealer or department store should fund the cost of an editorial news operation no longer makes sense.

So, should the AP be allowed to go after those who steal its content? There are spam and splog sites out there which duplicate the content in its entirety and provide no links back to the source pages. So, yes, AP should go after those sites and partner with sites like Google to ensure those spam sites are not included in the Google index. But if they go after search engines and aggregators who follow the "fair use" doctrine, I think the cure may be worse than the disease. We'll see AP content removed from the search engine indexes and see new competitors spring up to fill the void. Meanwhile, AP newspaper partners will see a drop in page views, further eroding advertising revenues.

The solution should lie in partnering with the search engines and aggregators to ensure that AP-syndicated content is shown in the best light and drives the most traffic to its partner sites. The AP should be providing widgets for its partners' use on social media platforms and mobile devices, all designed to help them grow their share of news content consumption. They could also work with aggregators to develop ways to generate shared revenues. Instead, they seem focused on a plan to make themselves irrelevant on the dominant platform for news - the Internet. Sure, they may generate some short-term licensing revenues, but in the long-term, they're destined for irrelevance.

Associated Press - be careful what you wish for.

Barry Graubart on April 07, 2009 in Content Business, General Business, Search, social media | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Associated Press, news, syndication

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