Slashdot Mirror
Blogs Are Eating Tech Media Alive
Heinz writes with an article in Forbes on how advertising in tech media is drying up and going — where else? — into specialist blogs and Google. "Silicon Valley is booming again. But if you work in tech media, there's blood on the floor. Take Red Herring. It hung onto its offices after getting the eviction notice earlier this month. But gossip site Valleywag is breaking story after story not just on its beat — but about its woes. Meanwhile, bigger publications are hurting too: Time Warner's Business 2.0 saw ad pages drop 21.8% through March from the same period a year ago; PC Magazine's editor in chief walked out the door after ad pages fell 38.8% over the same period; and one-time online powerhouse CNET is reporting growing losses even as the companies it covers flourish. It may be happening in tech first, but there's no reason the same thing won't happen, eventually, in every media niche."
A few years ago, Upside magazine went bust. Since I own Downside, I looked into buying their domain, but the assets of Upside were eventually acquired by another tech publishing firm. The article didn't mention Upside, although they mentioned The Industry Standard and Business 2.0, which also tanked.
We also lost Silicon Valley's newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News. It's been purchased by an outfit that runs cheesy suburban throwaways, and is being brought down to that level. It's still published, but nobody cares.
And Murdoch is buying the Wall Street Journal. Soon, there will be very few information sources that actually go out and dig out news.
Multiple pages are annoying, yes, but the biggest problem is the lack of links. When talking about technology, there's usually a relevant web site. Blogs will link to it, maybe adding some commentary of their own. But most journalism is written with the intent that you'll learn everything you want to know from the article itself, or other articles from the same source. Unfortunately I'm not sitting on a bench in the park in 1960 reading a newspaper, I'm on the internet, and if your site won't link to more information about the subject at hand, I'll go somewhere that will. And I don't just mean links to related stories - I want links to other sites. I know it's scary, but don't worry, if your story is interesting, I'll open it in another tab, and I'll continue ignoring your ads when I close it.
The funny thing is that its founder Steve Ciarcia left then market leader Byte Magazine, because it was turning into an advertorial marketing rag. Guess which magazine no longer exists :-)