Is the Internet Dead?
December 11, 2008If one applies the same logic media critics (those who keep telling us that print is dead) use any time they hear of layoffs in the magazine and newspaper businesses, than this story from Ad Age should lead to the conclusion that the internet is facing the same fate. Ad Age reports this morning that “the 1,500-person round of layoffs at Yahoo has begun and sales and marketing, content, engineering and administration have all been affected, including at Yahoo-acquired companies such as Right Media Exchange and Maven Networks.”
I have said it, and will continue to say it, our publishing model (including that on line) is bloated, very bloated… it is time for change, real change. It is not the medium that has the problems, but rather its publishing model. The economy is providing us with a huge wake up call. We better act up or the light at the end of the tunnel will indeed be the train coming.
Mr. Magazine 
i posted this question to the indie magazine publishers list on yahoo. would love to read your thoughts as well:
in all this talk in the media about the death of old media, can the word, “magazines” be inserted in place of the word, “newspapers” and all these discussions be just as relevant? how is this new landscape affecting magazines? …what do magazine publishers need to be doing (…same things as newspaper publishers? or different?) in order to survive and continue to stay connected to their readers?
We’ve seen the music industry, the movie industry, and now the newspaper publishing industry make huge mistakes in judging the market, judging consumers, judging advertisers, and these miscalculations (namely: actively fighting technology, or ignoring it and hoping it will go away) have cost them dearly. Magazines are certainly not immune. It seems to me that magazine publishers have audiences that are much more…”loyal”(??) than other mediums. How can magazine publishers leverage these readers in a new way that speaks in collaboration w/ technology rather than trying to ignore or fight it?
-carlos