By Warren Hersch
ASBPE President

Hardly a day goes by, it seems, when publishing gurus (or, closer to home, our own publishers and editorial directors) aren’t urging us to latch onto the latest social media or tech craze.

We all need to make our copy SEO-friendly and communicate with our readers via Twitter, online forums and blogs, we’re told, lest our trade magazines and newsletters become dinosaurs without a following.

Put service journalism into practice

Amid all the prognosticating, it’s easy to lose sight of how our B2B publications became the respected industry voices they are today: by practicing outstanding service journalism and investing in core assets that strengthen the brand. That lesson was brought home to the assembled attendees at last month’s ASBPE 2009 Digital Symposium.

A theme of the gathering was that B2B writers and editors can, where appropriate, leverage social media, search, and data aggregation tools to better engage readers in issues important to their respective fields. But they also stressed that such tools will only be effective if they serve the needs of one’s audience and a publication’s brand objectives.

Hinda Chalew of Staffing Industry Analysts, one of three presenters on the B2B social communities panel, said that editors at her firm’s three B2B pubs make extensive use of blogs, virtual events, surveys, and online social journalism tools. But the editors don’t use Facebook, My Space, or other Web communities. The reason: Most of the publications’ readers, decision-makers who supply and buy temporary staffing, don’t frequent these sites.

Knowledgeable writers provide substantive content

InfoWorld editor-in-chief Eric Knorr, a speaker on the panel about organizing print and online editorial teams, said his information technology magazine went through an “identity crisis” in April 2007 when it became an online-only publication. That wrenching change forced the magazine to reexamine, and ultimately give greater prominence to, the core assets that underpin the publication’s brand loyalty: InfoWorld’s top writers and bloggers, most of whom work (or have worked) in IT.

For Jim Sulecki, director of emedia, Meister Media, a publisher of specialty magazines for agricultural professionals, the use of online media has done wonders to generate Web traffic. Fresh Air Forum, a “cluster” community for professionals in ornamental horticulture, boasts nearly 700 members, the largest of the publisher’s online forums. Yet, Sulecki said such communities won’t realize their full potential until they’re integrated with the publisher’s brand sites: Cotton Grower, Crop Life, Precision Ag, and 14 other publications that serve agricultural professionals. (ASBPE members: See story in ASBPE member newsletter, November/December 2009, page 7 - 556K PDF.)

Edit for the busy reader: Clarity over cleverness

Few B2B editors have enjoyed as much success in leveraging social media and other Web tools as Technologizer editor Harry McCracken, the symposium’s kick-off speaker (see story on page 3 of the November/December member newsletter - 556K PDF). Since July 2008, McCracken’s online following rocketed from zero to 500,000 subscribers, thanks in part to his mastery of social media tools and certain “new essentials” (such as the ability to work in real time) the online world requires.

But McCracken emphasized that other, old writing essentials are also key to building and maintaining a superior brand. Among them: Emphasizing clarity over cleverness; pushing takeaways to the top; practicing the best service journalism you know how; and making content so good that people want to tell the world about it.

Labels: ASBPE Conference, Digital, Harry McCracken, Social Media, Warren Hersch

By Katy Tomasulo
President, Washington, D.C. Chapter

In 2008, Harry McCracken left his long-time role as editor-in-chief of PC World magazine to launch Technologizer, a Web site devoted to technology news and reviews. McCracken admits he didn’t know whether Technologizer would take off. But he got his answer pretty quickly: Within a few months of launching the site, readership climbed from zero to 500,000 unique visitors.

At the ASBPE Digital Symposium Nov. 6, he offered up some of the tips and lessons he's learned so far:

• Informality reigns on the Web. Treat it like a conversation by utilizing opinion and analysis, addressing the reader directly, and encouraging visitors to chime in with commentary.

• The smaller your site, the louder you need to be to be heard. If a hundred other sites are covering a story, you won’t get the clicks unless you are either first or are offering a fresher take/analysis.

• Don’t overthink SEO (search engine optimization). McCracken uses common sense for headlines and URLs by thinking about what people will type into Google when looking for information. For example, by using the headline “Firefox 3.5 Review,” his article on the release of the latest version of the Firefox Internet browser landed at the top of Google searches.

• Don’t write for Google, particularly the idea of putting a keyword in the article dozens of times. “If you use the word ‘laptop’ [repeatedly] in a 400-word story, people are going to know you’re not writing for them.”

• But don’t neglect Google, either. McCracken stressed that it’s not as complicated as some make it out to be. Avoid industry jargon and use words that real people use (e.g., use “laptop” instead of “notebook”), a task the Google Trends tool can help you figure out. Read Google’s own advice on making your content Google-friendly and apply to have your magazine’s articles indexed by Google News.

• Practice “Link Love,” a golden rule principle of linking unto others as you would have them link unto you.

• Reject the notion that only short articles work on the Web. While attention spans are shorter, “Content should be as long as the content justifies,” McCracken said. Technologizer features both long and short items, as appropriate. Short chunks are ideal for getting stuff up fast, for example, but he still has pieces that take longer to develop, just as in print.

• Experiment. Experiment. Experiment. Pay attention to metrics to see what topics are of interest, and see what people are commenting on and asking for. “The best way for you to learn is to give it a try.”

Note: An expanded version of this article will appear in the November/December 2009 ASBPE Editor’s Notes member newsletter.

Katy Tomasulo, president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of ASBPE, is deputy editor for EcoHome, Building Products, and ebuild.com.

Labels: ASBPE Conference, Digital, Harry McCracken, Katy Tomasulo

Looking back at our news archives, we found an interesting piece titled "Future News: What will our jobs be like a few years from now?" published August 1999. The article was written by Harry McCracken, who was the secretary for the ASBPE Boston Chapter at the time. (He later became the editor-in-chief of PC World and is now editor of Technologizer.) McCracken came up with the response "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's News in the Future project offers some answers."

Here is the article he wrote in 1999. How "on target" was it?

Since 1985, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Laboratory has been at the forefront of research into electronic publishing, imaging, digital music, artificial intelligence, and other technologies.

Recently, members of the Boston chapter toured the Lab and listened to a thought-provoking talk by Professor Walter Bender, director of the Media Lab’s News in the Future (NiF) research consortium, a group devoted to exploring technology’s potential to make news media more efficient, relevant, convenient, and timely.

Media Lab Projects

Media Lab researchers demonstrated or discussed the following projects, among others, with members:

Electronic paper.

The Lab is developing an inexpensive, flexible material that looks and acts like paper, but can display information that can be changed electronically, without the use of consumable materials. Its inventors believe that this medium could eventually be used to produce a computer for about $10.

A notepad that listens.

The Lab has developed a reporter’s steno pad with a built-in digital audio recorder. As the user records an interview or other event and jots notes on it, the notes and audio are synchronized; later, the user can select any note on the page and listen immediately to the corresponding sound bite.

High-tech product placement.

Attendees saw a soap-opera video clip in which all of the items depicted — clothing, furniture, and more — had been electronically identified and cataloged. Using an electronic pointer, the viewer can pick any on-screen item and see its name, its price, and details on ordering it from J.C. Penney (which funded this project).

Web sites that turn senior citizens into journalists.

Silver Stringers is an NiF program that helps senior citizens report on news in their communities and publish it on the Web. Take a look at stringers.media.mit.edu.

The world’s smartest coffee machine.

Not a media-related innovation per se, but any java-loving journalist will envy the Lab’s own coffee machine. Stick your own mug (with a special chip on the bottom) under the dripper, and the coffee brews to your exact preferences — while a radio plays your favorite station.

How the Net Will Change News

The discussion with News in the Future director Walter Bender was wide-ranging, focusing as much on philosophical issues as technological ones.

Because almost anyone can publish information on the Internet, Bender believes that many consumers will become de facto journalists themselves — and therefore be increasingly demanding of the media. Of participants in the Silver Stringers Web-publishing project, Bender says that "their relationship with [newspapers] has changed — they’re more critical, more engaged. As people’s level of engagement rises, they’re not going to tolerate sloppy journalism.

"What people want are not answers but questions," Bender told the event’s attendees. "They want things that will get them to think, that let them be part of the discourse. I’m after making news harder — if you’re going to be involved, you’ll actually have to think a bit."

Members’ Questions

Among Bender’s answers to attendees' questions:

What will happen to editors?

"Editors become more and more valuable — people are looking for judgment. The service an editor provides in print is transferable [to electronic media]."

Will old-media brands thrive online?

"CNN and USA Today have done a good job. On the other hand, it seems that you can create a new brand online, and it can happen pretty quickly. A lot of organizations have thrown away their opportunity — not that they can’t recover."

Will consumers pay for online news?

"Most news is going to be free online — the economics will be such that the bottom line is that if you have eyeballs, you have a vehicle for deriving revenue. But if you don’t have something that people are interested in, it doesn’t matter."

Will print media be crushed by electronic competition?

"Tell me a medium that’s ever gone away. They change in purpose, but they never die. Text is so damn efficient — I can read and skim in a way that I can’t do with audio or video."

Labels: Harry McCracken, Technology

By Martha Spizziri
ASBPE Web Editor

"Anyone can launch a media brand. The time is right now, especially because buying behavior has changed." That's the judgment of Joe Pulizzi, who copresented the ASBPE webinar "A B2B Journalist’s Guide to Creating the Next New-Media Resource" on Monday.

Pulizzi is founder and chief content officer of the content-marketing community Junta42. He also launched Junta42Match, a service for matching up buyers and sellers of custom publishing services. Presenting with Pulizzi was Harry McCracken, the former editor-in-chief of PC World, who left that publication to start the personal technology blog Technologizer. The site launched this year with zero traffic, but was getting 950,000 monthly page views and 400,000 unique visitors per month by its second full month of operation.

Although both presenters offered advice for editors who want to start their own ventures, most of their suggestions would be just as helpful to existing media companies planning to introduce a new-media property. Pulizzi explained how buying behavior has changed, and what that means for those who want to provide B2B information online. "More than 90% of business purchases begin online. So you have to find out how they’re using that information and become part of that process." Here are some of the other tips he and McCracken shared during the webcast:

Know where the money will be coming from before you start. Joe Pulizzi says a three-tier revenue model works in any market - that is, a new enterprise should be able to get revenue from at least three groups of people. Usually there are a main group or audience and a few ancillary groups.

Copy a model from another industry. Pulizzi used Digg as a model in starting Junta42. eHarmony and AgencyFinder were the models for Junta42Match.

Leave your job with a job. If you're striking out on your own, Pulizzi advised, continue to write or consult for their old companies while getting a new project started. Harry McCracken seconded this advice, noting that he's still a contributor to PC World. The writing he's done for that publishing franchise not only helped keep money coming in as the site ramped up, but it's great publicity for Technologizer.

Partner with other companies. You can't do it all yourself, Pulizzi stressed. In getting Junta42 started, Pulizzi partnered with American Business Media, BtoB Magazine, and the Custom Publishing Council. Working with established companies adds credibility to a new venture, and many of those companies will be willing to work with you because they need help figuring out how to build online products.

Treat your audience like editorial staff. Your audience contributes to your site in the form of blog comments and discussion forum posts, McCracken notes, and many of those participants may know more than you do about certain topics. What's more, based on their input to your site, you might even get to know users you'll want to hire to write for you. "Don’t think of your community as a database that you can sell to people. Do lots of polls and surveys. Find the best people and highlight their work – and even pay them," McCracken said.

Use free tools, even if you're a big media company. Big companies often bog themselves down in processes or tools. McCracken noted that there are many free tools now that are easy to use and comparable to products companies used to pay tens of thousands of dollars for. (For how to avoid getting burned when dealing with free web services, see this post from Technologizer.)

Don't bother with traditional search engine optimization. That's Harry McCracken's advice, and he admits it's unorthodox. But in his opinion, if you write good content and promote it via the social web, you'll rank high on Google. (For more, see this post from the blog McCracken on Media.)

McCracken and Pulizzi also discussed specific tools and marketing strategies they used, how to find writers when you're on a tight budget, and revenue streams beyond advertising. An archived version of this webcast will be available to attendees. Watch ASBPE's webinar page for updates on availability of the archived version, as well as updates on upcoming webinars.

Labels: Digital, Harry McCracken, Joe Pulizzi, Martha Spizziri, Media Business, Social Media, Technology, Webinars

By Steven Roll
ASBPE President

Harry McCracken, former editor-in-chief, of PC World, and editor of the recently launched personal technology blog Technologizer, recently started another blog featuring his observations on the media business. It's called McCracken On Media.

McCracken said he intends to use his blog to:

share the lessons I'm learning, as well as other stuff I've discovered over a couple of decades in the media biz. I'll also comment on major news that transpires during this most interesting, surprising, and ultimately rewarding time to be in the media industry. I hope you'll enjoy reading McCracken on Media (feel free to call it MoM for short); just as important, I hope you'll contribute,too, by commenting on my posts.

So far, I would say the flavor of MoM is one part Seth Godin (the ultra hip marketing guru), with a teaspoon of Lifehacker (limitless source of cool Web apps.), and a pinch of Malcolm Gladwell (riffs on counterintuitive observations).

His first post highlights how critical it is for any content Web site to focus on building a community. To do this, McCracken explains, it is critical to make it easy for people to participate. A free Web application that accomplishes this goal is Poll Daddy, he says.

Another post takes aim at the myth that there is a cadre of young media professionals known as "digital natives" who are especially suited working on all things digital. The real digital natives are sixteen, McCracken says. He notes that this makes the rest of us digital immigrants.

McCracken also casts doubt on the conventional pearls of wisdom that Web activity should be focused on mornings and weekdays, and headlines should be stuffed with key words.

Hopefully, the RSS feed I've subscribed to from the McCracken on Media blog will keep my Bloglines account full of unconventional observations about digital media.

Labels: Digital, Harry McCracken, Steven Roll

By Harry McCracken
Editor, Technologizer

“You’ve got to walk up to the edge of the cliff, jump off, and build your wings on the way down.” I didn’t hear Ray Bradbury say that until I saw him interviewed in late July, nearly two months after I left my job as editor in chief of PC World to launch Technologizer, my own Web site about personal technology. But the great man neatly summed up — better than I ever could — why I quit one of the best jobs in technology journalism to build something from scratch.

Actually, when people asked me what the heck I was thinking, I did have a ready answer: “I want to scare myself.” I loved PC World—I’d spent nearly fourteen years there, starting as an associate editor—but it was successful before I got there, and I knew it could thrive without me. Being a good steward of an existing brand is hard; jump-starting an entirely new brand is a harder, more exciting challenge. Moreover, I believed that the Web, open-source software, free services, and ad networks made it possible for a smart editor to reach millions of people and make money doing so, without the backing of a large media company. So I resigned from PC World (while remaining a contributing editor) and got to work on Technologizer.

As I write, it’s been about six weeks since I began posting content on Technologizer in earnest. That’s way too early to gauge the success of a new media brand, but I’m extremely happy with the site’s progress. Its monthly traffic now numbers in the hundreds of thousands of page views. Its most popular stories receive tens of thousands of views. It has a growing community of visitors, and the technology industry I cover has been tremendously supportive.

And every day, I feel like I’m building my wings on the way down—taking risks, experimenting, and learning as I go. Yes, it’s scary. But it’s also the highlight of my career to date.

Herewith, some advice to any journalist who’s intrigued by the idea of going it alone:

Don’t do it if it sounds awful. If you launch your own business, you’re going to need to pour your heart into it. If you love what you’re doing, that’s a joy; if you don’t, why bother?

Use everything you know. I’ve been in this business for seventeen years, and I use every bit of my knowledge about journalism every day—including plenty of things I learned when my words appeared on dead trees. Much of the art of pleasing readers is the same whether you’re working at the world’s largest magazine or the world’s smallest Web site. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Focus on creating compelling content. Plenty of Web gurus will tell you to obsess over search engine optimization or other technical matters. None of them matter much unless you’re producing articles, video, and/or audio that captures the imagination of the type of people you want to reach. I work far harder to optimize Technologizer for smart human beings than I do to optimize it for search engines, and it’s paying off.

Understand your traffic. On one level, building a successful Web site boils down to one rule: “Figure out what people want, and give them lots of it.” Use tools such as Google Analytics (analytics.google.com) to see what your readers do — and don’t — find interesting enough to click on.

Join conversations. It’s easiest to attract visitors to content that’s newsy and which links to other discussions of the topic at hand elsewhere on the Web. Link to sites you like, and you’ll often find that they link back to you, bringing new readers to your material.

Be part of the community. That means building community features into your own site and participating in them. Technologizer, for instance, includes a full-blown social network, using the Ning (www.ning.com) service. It’s also worth introducing your site to new readers by participating at other sites where people who might like what you’re doing hang out. (To that end, I’ve guested on several podcasts since Technologizer’s launch.)

Leverage the power of free. So far, I’ve incurred two major expenses: I hired a lawyer to help me incorporate my company and deal with contracts, and I bought a nice new notebook. Otherwise, I’m feasting on free stuff. I use services like Google Docs and Gmail, hop on free Wi-Fi networks whenever possible, and generally try to avoid paying for anything when a solid no-cost alternative is available.

Find good partners. At the moment, I’m Technologizer’s sole writer and designer, but I knew I couldn’t do everything. In particular, I needed help on the advertising front, so I signed up with Federated Media — one of a growing number of companies in the business of handling ads for independent blogs and other small sites. I also partnered with Automattic, creators of the WordPress blogging platform, to host my site. When the day comes that I get hundreds of thousands of page views all at once, I want to be ready, and nobody knows more about handling massive amounts of traffic than Automattic does.

Be patient. Building a site that has enough readers and advertisers to be a self-sustaining business can’t be done overnight. Create a business plan that’ll get you there—and make sure that you know how you’ll pay your bills along the way.

I still run into folks who are surprised at my new adventure, and even skeptical. And I wouldn’t recommend that every journalist do what I did. But a few years from now, I think that going it alone will be entirely commonplace—and that the world of journalism will be far better for it.

Editor's Note, added Sept. 18, 2008: Inspired partly by writing this post for us, McCracken today launched a blog featuring his observations on the media business. It's called McCracken on Media.

Labels: Digital, Harry McCracken, Technology, Work Life