IDG sees more paid, controlled circ on Web
You'd be hard-pressed to find a publishing company that is smarter than IDG. So it's always worth paying attention to what the owner of CIO and ComputerWorld thinks. In the past, I've made note of IDG's interest in overseas B2B publishing, and I've urged journalists to pursue a more global strategy and culture.
Now Wired magazine has an interesting interview with IDG's chief executive officer Pat Kenealy. According to Wired, Kenealy predicts that Web publishers will move to become less Web-like by hiding more material from search engines.
It's an interesting prediction...but not one I share.
Take a look at the article. Make particular note of IDG's adoption of a multiple choice style of Web publishing, which Wired describes as a mix of "free content, cheap content, expensive content, content that requires an onerous registration process, and content that requires little more than an e-mail address and ZIP code."
I suspect that this not-one-size-fits-all strategy is one that every trade publisher should adopt.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines