Kaiyzen Group

Nowdays with the acceleration of online advertising and the big “G” taking up all the headlines.., people love to bash on the print world and its “inevitable demise”.

This will be the first of many future posts to come on the battle of offline print to survive as the web continues to grow and eat up more of our precious waking moments.

New stats out on ad-sale figures from the News Paper Association of America.  Advertising on newspaper websites rose 21.1% to $773 million in Q3 of ‘07 compared to last year.  Of course the flipside is the is the 7.4% decrease in sales that occured in offline advertising during that same period.  Classifieds continue to be the biggest loser with a 17% drop.

This trend of course is going to continue in the up and coming years.

I believe this phase we are in now is a combination of the weeding out of the weak print publications as well as larger print houses trying to figure out where to focus their energies.  You are seeing many of the big print houses close either underperforming publications or those that have crossover with some of their other titles.  One of the most notable.., and closest to my heart as a dedicated monthly reader is Time closing Business 2.0.

After combining the sales staffs of Biz 2.0 and Fortune, Time proceeded to run Business 2.0 into the ground as the new combined sales staff focused on filling Fortune inventory first and Biz 2.0 second.  After several months of enemic sales the choice was made to pull the plug.  Even though fans came to the rescue.., Time added a few extra months but enevitably closed Business 2.0 in October.

I refuse to believe the hype when people write that the printed word is doomed and online will dominate.  I for one am still a HUGE fan of the printed word.  I still love to go to Keplers Books in Menlo Park.., pick up my favorite mags each month and sit outside at Barrone’s flipping through my mag, enjoying my Itialian soda.

I think we are in the infancy of implementation of great technology bridging the gap between print and online.  People who are passionate about their print AND online content consumption will thrive in this enviroment.  Just close your eyes and picture the future of what will be possible with your favorite magazine and its accompanying web site.., RFID/OCR…, and your cell.

I can only wish that I am lucky enough to be part of one of the teams that works on such technology.