Mark’s Cheeky Posterous

Why You Probably Shouldn't Mourn Media Property Loss

Today the editor of the terrific blog from PBS called MediaShift, Mark Glaser, pointed me via Twitter to comments on one of their recent posts about the closing of Gourmet magazine: http://bit.ly/4zvPu4 Some people mourned its passing, and others didn't. It's more logical to be in the camp that didn't. The reason is that a good deal of the content in a good deal of magazines and other media properties simply isn't that valuable. It doesn't have much value because it isn't very unique, and it's easy to duplicate and repurpose. Commenters who didn't mourn mentioned that they increasingly turned to sites like Epicurious.com for their information. Thus, in their minds, Gourmet (which costs a lot of develop, print, and distribute) is getting outcompeted by websites like Epicurious. If you want to sell hard-copy magazines for 4, 5, or 6 dollars, you really have to provide something on the order of 5X the value of all the websites I can access in 10 min. Otherwise, why would I make the effort to buy your magazine? The 5X rule means that it is insufficient to simply have the same stuff as a website like FoodBlogs.com, and then add some glossy photos and an interview with Wolfgang Puck. Consumers no longer think that's worth the money. What is worth the money? Unique, engaging, difficult-to-copy, valuable, branded content. The new database/wiki WhoRunsGov from the Washington Post is a good example of this strategy. Another thing that is worth the money is getting you the same information as competitors, but faster, in a time-dependent situation. Unfortunately for Gourmet magazine, Thanksgiving dinner can be a few minutes late. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed