Weblogs and personal journalism are never going to be a threat to Adweek or Advertising Age like several people implied (as an example) today. This is one of the few times where I have been up close and personal to a decade-long series of such predictions regarding the demise of century-old B2B media companies and have, at the same time, known personally the people who run and own those companies. I only need to mention the company Vertical Net to remind folks that at one time, there was a company with the mythical stock-market value of several billions of dollars that was going to be a threat to all Business to Business media by moving it all to the web. I think it’s great that people are blogging about media and marketing. I am happy to note that I’ve been blogging about magazines for the past two years. But friends, I am never going to be a threat to Folio: with just a weblog. (Not to imply they don’t have threats.) I’m apples, they’re oranges. The world is big enough for me to do what I do for whatever reasons drive me to do it and for them to do likewise. VNU and Crain have nothing to worry about from bloggers threatening their established media properties. That is especially true about Crain Communications (Ad Age, Automotive News, etc.), as Keith and Rance Crain are two of the most unique media executives left in America: They both have voices (very human voices) of authority, integrity and truth and near-radical independence. They mince no words and back down from no one. I doubt they will ever blog, but their decades of commentary about automobiles and advertising are the purest examples of human-voice insight those two industries will ever hear. Come to think of it, however, I think they would blog if they didn't have all those other ways to tell the world what they believe.
(link via Doc)
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