Forum: Are B-to-B Web Sites Hurting Magazines?

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March, 1999 by James J. Collari

A number of online-only ventures are competing with, and sometimes out-performing, trade-magazine Web sites. FOLIO: asked four print executives if they think the new competition is a threat to them and, if so, how they plan to counter it. Edited by Rolf Maurer

The growth doesn't surprise me, because most magazine sites rely primarily on recycling highlights of their last issue. We stay competitive by differentiating our Web offerings, some of which require a subscriber ID number, from our magazine's content, so advertisers will support it separate from the magazine. We recently introduced a daily component to our Plastics Technology site (plasticstechnology.com) using original material.

I don't see these other sites as direct competition, because some are so commerce-oriented. The Plastics Network, for instance, links people to suppliers in what amounts to an electronic marketplace.

Sandy Reed

Editor in chief, InfoWorld/InfoWorld Electric

The threat posed by online-only b-to-b sites is analogous to the chef of a five-star restaurant being threatened by a new mall food court.

Revenues for non-magazine sites may be outstripping those of print-based sites, but that doesn't automatically equate with profits. As a 21-year-old publication, we know what sort of information our corporate IT executive readers need, and have extended that relationship online to our free infoworld.com site. Whether online-only competitors can build a similar relationship is iffy, particularly in a field where the audience is so well versed in the form.

Still, it's always wise to be on the lookout because some food courts do survive. Web-only services' strongest asset is in breaking technology news. Aside from online-only columnists and archives, one of InfoWorld Electric's biggest weapons is its forums, where users can discuss issues, or Info World writers can continue the discussion started by their magazine stories. This accounts for 20 percent to 25 percent of our traffic.

Charlie Troy

Web site editor, Photonics Spectra

The revenue disparity makes sense, I suppose, since stand-alone sites focus all their attention on marketing themselves, where magazines might initially look at their sites as revenue enhancements.

We intend to stay current by continually redefining our free three-year-old site. That means including services only a site with the resources of a print publication can offer, like directories and suppliers' listings. As long as stand-alone sites continue to indulge in flash and insubstantial briefs, I think their growth is as high as it will ever be-particularly in our technical field, where a lack of depth will become apparent quickly enough.

For the moment, we're more concerned with name confusion than brand erosion from non-magazine sites.

Hal Halpin

President and publisher, Game Week

It could be that too many publishers in various industries are dropping the ball in meeting online readers' needs. If they don't do it, someone else will. In our field, electronic gaming, such a disparity is not apparent yet.

The online situation could change in a year, when bandwidth increases for the Internet go into effect. Even with the resultant enhanced multimedia capacity, the challenges for Web-only services will still be formidable. They'll have to spend more to market their brand, build it and get the recognition the print publisher will already have. This challenges us to make sure the quality of print is the same as it is online. Through the free CyberActive Network (cyberactive.net) and, in particular, its Game Daily component (gamedaily.com), we are gearing up for this by presenting more news than in the magazine, with less depth. While the material is not as investigative as in our trade Game Week, it changes more-in the case of Game Daily, up to 20 times a day.