Category Archives: publishing

Many congratulations to the Wall Street Journal! Here’s a little bit of today’s WSJ.com front page — you can click on the picture for a big screencap of the full front page. The important thing here is the second link, … Continue reading →

Michael Wolff on how Rupert Murdoch discovered there was more to Dow Jones than just the WSJ: I don’t believe he had any idea there was an enterprise side of the business. I believe I was the one to explain … Continue reading →

I’m at the Future of Business Media conference, where the wifi is painfully slow and where Robert Thomson, the editor of the WSJ, spoke this morning. He spent some time addressing the subject of whether wsj.com should be free, and … Continue reading →

In a presidential campaign, candidates triangulate towards the center. The Democrat knows he has his party’s hard-core supporters in the bag; the Republican likewise. So both tend to take those hard-core supporters for granted and chase after other voters. According … Continue reading →

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp today announced a 57% rise in annual profits, to $5.38 billion. Please, Mr Murdoch, spend a tiny, tiny amount of that money on fixing the Wall Street Journal’s horrendously broken subscriptions system. I’m spending the summer … Continue reading →

Jon Fine had a long chat with WSJ editor Robert Thomson, and got some interesting statements out of him: Also coming: extensive customizing tools for readers to find, through search, much more Dow Jones content. (In Thomson’s groan-worthy formulation, "In … Continue reading →

Nat Ives talks to WSJ publisher Les Hinton, who explains the paper’s move into general news. Is it driven by Rupert Murdoch’s desire to compete head-on with the the NYT? Quite possibly, yes. But Hinton’s on-the-record justification also makes sense: … Continue reading →

Congratulations to wsj.com for posting impressive growth in both pageviews and unique visitors over the past year. Don’t pay too much attention to the numbers quoted: they’re "based on the company’s internal traffic numbers," and therefore not much use in … Continue reading →

Last week, Research Recap featured a Forrester study entitled "The Fragmentation Of Yesterday’s Newspaper". A mention of RSS feeds piqued my interest, and Forrester was kind enough to send me a copy today. The conclusions of the report are, I … Continue reading →

The panel on the future of print media was really rather depressing, and not necessarily because the panelists were downbeat. The panel comprised four late-middle-aged business guys. They’re all reasonably bullish on how newspaper companies can transform themselves into web-era … Continue reading →

David Carr’s column on the WSJ today is excellent: when he describes the behavior of the WSJ’s editors before and since Murdoch’s takeover as "a pattern of rolling complicity," he really couldn’t put it any better. But he goes further … Continue reading →

Barry Ritholtz thinks that as the WSJ becomes newsier and more like the NYT, the NYT should beef up its business coverage and try "to go after the Journal’s audience" of executives who expense their subscriptions. I don’t think this … Continue reading →

This might be a first: has an acquisition by Rupert Murdoch ever before been welcomed by a newspaper’s unions? “We’d appreciate anybody coming in here that has a newspaper background, that knows New York, whether it’s Zuckerman or Murdoch or … Continue reading →

Rupert Murdoch seems to be quietly nearing a deal to buy Newsday from Sam Zell for about $580 million. That’s almost exactly the same amount of money as he spent on buying MySpace – an investment which Gillian Wee weirdly … Continue reading →

Newsweek and the NY Post are today resuscitating one of the perennial rumors in medialand: that Mike Bloomberg will somehow end up buying the New York Times. If the Sulzberger family was amenable – and that’s a big if – … Continue reading →

Rafat Ali reports today that after spending "millions" on a redesign, the all-new WSJ.com will launch "in the next few weeks", with a simple aim: "to drive more traffic in a bigger way". At the margin, resdesigns can and do … Continue reading →

Esther Dyson has a thought-provoking op-ed in the WSJ today, which really ought to be read by the paper’s new owner, Rupert Murdoch. "The Coming Ad Revolution" is the headline, and a close reader of the piece will immediately understand … Continue reading →

Last week, Henry Blodget made a good point about WSJ.com going free: The first indication that you WSJ holdouts may not suddenly get your free lunch is this: Murdoch’s owned the thing for several weeks now and it hasn’t yet … Continue reading →

PaidContent’s Joseph Wiesenthal has found a research note from Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang which is bearish on the revenue prospects for a free WSJ.com, compared to the amount it currently generates in subscriptions. Bloggers love to fisk Wall Street … Continue reading →

Rupert Murdoch has installed his hand-picked man, Robert Thomson, as the boss of WSJ editor Marcus Brauchli. That doesn’t violate the letter of the agreement Murdoch made to preserve the WSJ’s independence: Thomson is nominally the WSJ’s publisher, and Brauchli … Continue reading →

When was the last time you saw a trader using a web browser? I ask because there seems to be some worry that if WSJ.com goes free, that might mean fewer people subscribing to Dow Jones Newswires. I also believe … Continue reading →

In the wake of the latest news about WSJ.com going free, the old arguments against such a move have been emerging from people who think they’re smarter than Rupert Murdoch. They’re not. The main argument is summed up by Barry … Continue reading →