print media

Google makes more money from ads than print media combined

Google makes more money from advertising than all U.S. print publications combined, according to a new study from German statistics company Statista.

The company found Google generated $20.8 billion in ad revenue in the first six months of 2012, while the whole U.S. print media industry -- newspapers and magazines -- made only $19.2 billion.

Statista did note, however, that the comparison is "obviously unfair" and shouldn't be judged scientifically. Google operates globally, while the company only looked at print media in the U.S.

Still, it's a pretty interesting indication of … Read more

Lights turning off at Nintendo Power?

Before Google, many young'uns (such as myself) relied on magazines, telephone hotlines, and other old-world forms of communication to learn more about upcoming video games, hints, or cheats. One favored source of Nintendo game information for many people, Nintendo Power, will end its 24-year run this year, reports Ars Technica.

Supposedly, the magazine's parent company, Future Publishing, could not strike up a new contract with Nintendo to keep the publication going. An Ars source cites Nintendo as "difficult to work with," uninterested in expanding online content for the Nintendo Power brand, and even unwilling to retake the magazine from Future (which gained rights to the magazine in 2007 from Nintendo).

Future Publishing did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment. … Read more

Gourmet closing makes Twitterverse sizzle

The bittersweet jokes write themselves.

Ben Huh, the CEO of funny photo hub "I Can Has Cheezburger," who has been known to show up at black-tie events with a giant hamburger hat on his head, on Monday offered via Twitter to purchase Gourmet, the seven-decade-old, high-end cooking magazine that will be ceasing publication in November as part of budget cuts at parent company Conde Nast.

Huh was probably kidding. We think.

The recent ax job at Conde Nast, long a symbol of print media's most egregious of excesses and more recently the ultimate case of a postlapsarian … Read more

Ballmer says offline media is dead, keeps mum on Microsoft's offline software

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had some provocative prophecies to share with the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France, declaring that within 10 years all content will be online.

There won't be newspapers, magazines and TV programs. There won't be personal, social communications offline and separate.

But will there be Windows?

After all, the trend Ballmer spots in the media world is almost exactly the same thing that is roiling the software markets as software shifts to subscription-based cloud computing, a weak area for Microsoft but a strong one for Google.

Yes, Microsoft has Azure, an attempt to … Read more

Mandate for papers, advertisers: Innovate or die

Has it finally arrived, the post-advertising age? Advertising Age, nomen est omen, recently ran a story on the blurring line between commercial and editorial content, as media companies are facing a fiercely competitive marketplace amid declining advertising budgets (according to the Newspaper Association of America, advertising revenue in 2008 decreased by 17 percent, to $38 billion), and the looming crisis of the news industry as a whole (see Clay Shirky’s seminal essay on "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable").

As if to further prove the point, the Los Angeles Times carried a Page 1 advertisement on Thursday that … Read more

At SXSWi, how much should big media be listening?

AUSTIN, Texas--With panels and discussions every year about social engineering, hacking, remixing, and culture jamming, South by Southwest Interactive is the must-attend conference for geeks who want to shake things up.

Maybe that's why the many panels at the conference about the future of media--from print to broadcast to music to film--were tinged with the message that fast, often radical change is necessary. With panel topics like "How Copyright Law Failed The Digital Age," "New Think for Old Publishers," and "Old Media Finds New Voice Through Twitter," this year's SXSWi promised to … Read more

Free papers for 18-year-olds to beat Google News?

It is said (by biographer Michael Wolff, for one) that whenever Rupert Murdoch meets Sergey Brin and Larry Page, he quizzes them as to why they don't read newspapers.

The President of France has decided to roll up his copy of L'Equipe and strike a blow for paper reading.

Every French 18-year-old will be given a newspaper subscription free for his or her birthday. Yes, a paper version, one that can be clutched on the subway and used as a receptacle for one's pommes frites.

The publishers themselves will cover the cost of the papers, while the … Read more

Lay offs at the Mercury News

With Bush's pardon commutation of Scooter Libby's 30 month prison sentence dominating the news this morning, the San Jose Mercury News published an article announcing 31 lay offs from their newsroom. This news, along with 15 recent volunteer resignations brings The Mercury's fleet of reporters down to 200 which according to the article is about half of what it was in 2000. Of course, this news shouldn't come as too much of a surprise as newspapers across the country have been feeling the heat for some time and many have resorted to lay offs in an effort to balance their declining budgets.

So why is it that print newspapers are faltering in recent years? Is it because of the rise of online journalists and bloggers or is it because American's have grown hypersensitive about paper waste and have decided it is no longer responsible to read a daily newspaper? Has Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth had that much of an impact? Somehow I doubt it.