There is a fascinating article by Hershel Sarbin at Magazine Enterprise 360 on the surprising health of the allegedly dying B2B print business. Sarbin cites a rash of statistics that point to the continued health of print.

This certainly tracks with what I am hearing from our clients with magazine properties -- business is good, revenues are up, and a few are even reporting (quietly, for fear of jinxing this success they really don't understand) record years.

Almost the first day I entered this business, a brief 20 years ago, I heard predictions on the imminent death of print. I remember a meeting at Thomas Publishing in the early 80's where its composition vendor was demonstrating a prototype version of Thomas Register on something called a CD-ROM. To illustrate this miraculous new technology, the president of the vendor company brought with him a low power laser, which certainly had the rapt attention of the room as he demonstrated it, especially after it became apparent the laser beam was not at all low-powered. First takeaway from this meeting: print is dead. Second takeaway from this meeting: lasers are not toys.

I have been hearing about, and talking about, the imminent death of print ever since. But every time I look around, I see continued health and growth in print. So what gives?

My notion is what we are seeing is less a demonstration of the power of print than a demonstration of the underlying power of business publishers. B2B publishers exist to unite buyers and seller, and both buyers and sellers continue to want and need to be united. The format of choice to do this for many decades has been print. It's understood. It is comfortable. It has a track record of delivering results. That's why many publishers continue to push print and rely on it, and that's why many advertisers continue to buy print, and this situation has the potential to go on for a very long time.

The problem and risk is complacency. There is continuing power in the printing press, but the information paradigm has shifted permanently. Up to 90% of all pre-purchase B2B research occurs online, and that's why print-based publishers need to build out strong electronic alternatives to their print products. The real strength of most B2B publishers is their central market position, which you’ll hear more about in October at this year’s InfoCommerce 2006, and publishers need to make a genuine commitment to dominating their markets online as well as in print. Because if they don't provide the online counterparts to their successful print publications, some one else assuredly will.

A recent article in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, covered a conference sponsored by Google called Zeitgeist 06, designed to brief its European partners on its new initiatives. Google co-founder Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt focused on an ambitious new project now underway to build true artificial intelligence capabilities into its search product, a prospect they estimate may only be a few years away.

But while Google wanted to talk about artificial intelligence and the future, apparently its partners wanted to talk about the present, particularly about its seemingly scatter-shot approach to new product development, its indulgence of its engineers pursuing pet projects with little coordination, and its seeming lack of support for products when launched, allowing many to languish in the limbo of perpetual beta.

According to the article, Schmidt claimed that Google was starting to spend more time thinking about how to integrate its various offerings into its core search business, while at the same time denying that Google was entering a business consolidation phase.

Schmidt also offered a few words of wisdom to publishers who are seeing their businesses eroded by online rivals. He said usage of traditional media placed online is rising rapidly, but circulations - the revenue generator - are declining. "You don't have a lack of audience problem, you have a business model problem," he said.


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This is one of those pithy comments that on first glance sounds profound, but on closer examination doesn't make much sense. How can circulation be down, yet we as publishers don't have an audience problem? How can we as publishers have a business model problem if we don’t have an audience problem? After all, our audience is our product.

I'd contend that if we have a problem, it's a Google problem. I will grant unreservedly that Google built a better mousetrap with its search engine technology, but the jury is still out in the world of B2B if Google is has created a fundamentally better way to advertise, or if their core innovaton was simply a cheaper way to advertise. Google's new product launches are, in my opinion, the equivalent of fishing with dynamite. Toss it out and see what happens. If it doesnt achieve desirable results, ignore the wreckage you have created and toss some dynamite in another part of the lake.

The Zeitgeist at Google right now is a dangerous mix of excess cash, egos stoked by early success, and as far as any outsiders have been able to determine, not much in terms of a long-range plan or strategy. Add in a "fishing with dynamite" approach to new product development that roils existing markets, consistently creating new enemies without consistently creating new profits, and you have a company that's damaging a lot of existing business models without offering one worth emulating.