IDG, the publisher of InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, MacWorld and other technology magazines has been shifting away from paper to online editions. This New York Times article mentions that the transition has generated more revenue than the company expected:
Today, I.D.G. says, the InfoWorld Web site is generating ad revenue of $1.6 million a month with operating profit margins of 37 percent. A year earlier, when it had both print and online versions, InfoWorld had a slight operating loss on monthly revenue of $1.5 million.
This is remarkable given that some IDG titles like CIO magazine are distributed free of free of charge. Advertisers subsidize the content for both the web-based and print editions. While some IDG titles like InfoWorld are online only, CIO is still available in a twice-monthly print edition, largely because advertisers believe the target audience is less likely to read the online version. CIO also features longer articles than InfoWorld these days.
IDG has also added multiple RSS feeds to its web sites, to capture readers who prefer to use feed aggregators.
Many of these IDG magazines have been cited in previous billso.com articles, such as this post from 7 May 2008. I also list some of these titles on my references page, which contains many reliable and authoritative sources for researchers, managers and my students.
Tags: authority · business-model · CIO · publishing · research · revenue · rss
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