Min's B to B articles from February 2004

Min's B to B archives from February 2004

B2B M&A: Vance Adds C&P's Ag Chemical Desk References to its Six-Title Crop Collection.
February 2, 2004... With more signs of the long-hoped-for media recovery appearing every day, publishers are starting to hone their portfolios and, when possible, make surgical acquisitions of complementary properties that can strengthen their hand and broaden...

Are Advertisers Getting All They Should Be from Their Ad Agencies?
February 2, 2004... If advertising makes the media world go 'round, we may all be in for some trouble. It seems that advertisers don't think very much of the work their ad agencies are doing for them or of what they're paying to get it, which could have...

B2B Boxscores (November)--Will Bush's NASA Nudge Fuel New Liftoff in Engineering Books?
February 2, 2004... It remains to be seen if President Bush's newfound devotion to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's space exploration program has any beneficial effect on our group of 22 Engineering titles, but they could sure use some extra...

ASBPE Salary Calculator: Find Out if You're Really Underpaid.
February 2, 2004... Kinda like those crow's feet around your eyes, your blood pressure, and that bulging belly, this is the sort of thing that you know is there but you may not really want to examine very closely. The American Society of Business Publication...

B2B Boxscores (November)--Vertical/Special Interest May Be Veering Off Course.
February 2, 2004... Last month (see min's b2b, 1/5/04), we wrote of the "page drain" easing in this eclectic group of 16 titles. Cancel that. October's encouraging -2.08% ad-page performance (-0.83% ad revenues) has become November's dispiriting - 14.08%...

B2B New Media Report: Behavioral Tracking of Web Visitors Gives Advertisers Tighter Targeting...
February 2, 2004... The online business site CBS MarketWatch wants more business-to-business ad money, while Dow Jones wants more consumer ad buys. But both companies are using the same "new new thing" to get to different places: behavioral targeting and audience...

...While Also Broadening the Sites' Ad Bases by Maximizing Affinity Interests.
February 2, 2004... Ironically, while behavioral tracking actually allows for very tight targeting into specific niches, it also helps sites broaden their ad base by maximizing the affinity interests of their audiences. For instance, Dow Jones has been using...

B2B Boxscores (November)--Are Waning Ratings Eroding Broadcast/Video Results?
February 2, 2004... When broadcast networks are devoting a lot of first-quarter ad inventory to advertiser make-goods for failed fall ratings, as they're doing now, it isn't a happy time in the Broadcast/Video sector. There is a growing fear that television is...

B2B People on the Move.
February 2, 2004... Mark Wilmoth is returning to Tulsa, OK, as CFO/senior VP of PennWell Corp. (Oil & Gas Journal/Power Engineering). The company believes Wilmoth's 21 years of international financial/accounting expertise, honed in California as CFO of...

B2B Stockwatch: Was B2B Snowed Under By Fears of the End of Easy Money?
February 2, 2004... Market unrest last week over the possible end of the country's longstanding cheap money policy contributed to Wednesday's (January 28) 141-point drop (-1.33%) in the Dow Jones industrial average, its largest dip since last October. (A...

Global B2B: RBI Turns to IDG to Broaden Reach of Magazine Brands in China...
February 9, 2004... Relationships can mean everything in B2B media and, just as publishers are scouting for new ways to capitalize on the underserved Chinese market, Reed Business Information CEO Jim Casella has called on his long friendship with his former boss,...

...While CMP Introduces Chinese Software Developers to Dr. Dobb's.
February 9, 2004... RBI isn't the only B2B player looking East. CMP Media has its own plans in the People's Republic, revealing last week that a new edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal, which targets software developers, was its latest entry into China--where the...

Casella: 'High Cyclicality' Makes B2B Print an Unattractive M&A Option for RBI.
February 9, 2004... You might think that, amid widespread anticipation of a media industry rebound, one of the country's largest B2B media companies would be actively in the market for complementary print magazines to broaden its empire. Think again. While...

B2B Boxscores (December '03): The Market Is Moving in More Ways Than One for Developer/Tech Sector.
February 9, 2004... The year 2003 was a long, painful slog for this troubled, highly volatile category, for which market conditions seem to be changing almost daily. Many of the sector's 21 CMR-tracked titles were putting up double-digit declines across the board...

Year-end '03 B2B Group Publishers Boxscore Review Begins Next Week.
February 9, 2004... New Year's has come and gone, but that doesn't mean 2003 is entirely over. We are putting the finishing touches on our year-end B2B Group Publishers listings and, beginning with next week's issue, we'll be running full-year boxscore...

B2B Boxscores (December): Rx Sector Yields Almost 10% Spending Growth.
February 9, 2004... Weak December action (ad pages: -6.77%/ad revenue: -2.89%) did little to stunt year-end 2003 tallies in the Healthcare/Pharmaceutical sector, one of B2B's bellwether categories (and one in which 2004 M&A activity is likely to be brisk)....

B2B Management: Don't Wait for the Recovery to Come to You.
February 9, 2004... A lot of publishers, tired of three years of belt-tightening and costcutting, are eagerly looking forward to the economic recovery featured in just about any business section these days. But the question of how to manage for the recovery--the...

B2B Stockwatch: There's Nothing Easy About This Recovery.
February 9, 2004... The recovery may be under way, but it isn't a slam dunk and it isn't without setbacks (but, of concern to President Bush, it does seem to be without widespread new job creation). Consequently, the market still has its share of ups and downs,...

Managing B2B Growth: Need Events? To Buy or Not to Buy (and Launch Instead) Is the Question at Cygnus...(business to business)(Brief Article)
February 16, 2004... There's been a lot of talk lately about a recovering B2B M&A market, with deal volume, number of premium properties available, and valuations all expected to rise. But oftentimes a company may decide that launching a new property is preferable...

...When Company Brass Face Unfavorable M&A Pricing, Availability.(business to business market)
February 16, 2004... While Mackler (ex-Reed Exhibitions) stresses that Cygnus is just as likely to use M&A as launches to achieve individual build-out strategies, conditions where it may favor a launch over acquisitions could be price, quality, or lack of...

Leading B2B Ad Categories (2003)--Healthcare, Government Sectors Rise Above the Ashes.
February 16, 2004... It's understandable if a review of yearend 2003 advertising results in 15 top B2B categories has publishers and their sales staffs scratching their heads. After all, they like to go where the action is and, given that 10 of the 15 sectors had...

min's b2b's Exclusive Review of B2B Group Publishers' 2003 versus 2002 Ad Pages/$$$ (Part I): Bloodied Publishers Hope the Worst Is Over.(business to business)(Illustration)
February 16, 2004... As one publisher recently told us, "People used to hush their voices and get real solemn when speaking of the recessions of 1982 and 1987. But this last one was twice as deep and twice as long." And, he could have added, twice as bad. But...

B2B Boxscores (December '03)--Full Year Hurts, But Incremental Progress Continues in Electronics.
February 16, 2004... As some players in the Electronics sector look across the sea for their next-stage growth, there aren't many who will look back on 2003 with fondness. After all, 10 of the 23 CMR-tracked titles in our group suffered ad-page losses up around 15%...

B2B New Media Report: Ad Targeting to the Max: We Know Where You Are and We Know What You Do...(business to business)(Brief Article)
February 16, 2004... What if your B2B advertising had the same laser targeting capabilities of a U.S. Air Force smart bomb? What if your site knew when a visitor came into the home page where she was located physically and perhaps even what sort of job and...

...As New Ad Tech Pinpoint's Web Users' Location, Job Status.(business to business advertising)(Brief Article)
February 16, 2004... "With geolocation technology we are actually identifying the IP address of the visitor in real time," says Angela Culver, senior marketing director for Quova. "That allows us to serve up more localized, customized ads to that demographic."...

B2B Boxscores (December '03): Damage Could Have Been Worse for Banking Books.
February 16, 2004... For a magazine sector that was battered throughout the year by bank consolidations, corporate financial scandals, and sagging public confidence in investment research and practices at many brokerages, Banking/Finance titles didn't end the year...

B2B People on the Move.(Helmers Publishing)(appointments)(Brief Article)
February 16, 2004... McGraw-Hill named Anne Hunt Cheevers to the newly-created post of vp/marketing of its Aviation Week Group. The former Cendant marketing executive will oversee business development, marketing services, and research, as well as public...

B2B Stockwatch--Comcast's Disney Move Lifts Many Media Boats.
February 16, 2004... When Microsoft chairman Bill Gates invested $1B in Comcast in 1997, his interest helped energize what at the time was a somewhat dormant media sector. The same thing may be happening again, following Comcast's $54B (or $66B, depending on...

B2B Executive Update: Three Months In at Primedia, CEO Conlin Has Company Getting Back to Basics...(Kelly Conlin of PRIMEDIA Inc. (New York, New York))(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... They're getting down to business at Primedia, but it isn't business as usual. That's how Kelly Conlin sums up his first three months as president/CEO of the sprawling, troubled giant with a strong presence in B2B, consumer media, directories,...

...But With an Eye for Upgrading Properties, Strategically-Motivated M&A.(business to business market)
February 23, 2004... This isn't to say the company will just be a spectator in the media M&A rebound that is expected for this year. "We'll be looking, for sure," Conlin says, "but our priority will be strengthening our position in core markets rather than...

min's b2b's Exclusive Review of B2B Group Publishers' 2003 versus 2002 Ad Pages/$$$ (Part II): Fashion, Foodservice, Healthcare All Buck Recent B2B Bugaboos.(business to business)
February 23, 2004... Fashion never seems to go out of style, and Fairchild Publications--which specializes in covering the clothes, the designers, the accessories, and the retailers--turned in some of the strongest 2003 results among our 22 B2B group publishers....

B2B Boxscores (December '03)--Prosperous Food Sector Has Plenty of Haves, Have- Nots.
February 23, 2004... Competition in media has always offered stark demonstration of Darwin's survival of the fittest, and that's certainly evident in the crowded foodservice category--which, for our 31 CMR-tracked titles, covers everything from supermarkets and...

B2B New Media Boxscores (December '03): Despite B2B's Usual Holiday Hiatus, IT Sites Yield a Yuletide Surprise...(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... Networking and IT sites weathered the December traffic chill just fine, thank you, perhaps signaling a coming reinvestment in technology in 2004. While most B2B venues suffered the expected drain-off of traffic to holiday time and online...

...As Year-End Box Scores Suggest the Eyeballs Keep Coming Even if Investment Does Not.(business to business advertising)
February 23, 2004... Even as many B2B publishers restrain their online commitments, traffic continues to mount as business users in all sectors now expect the Web to serve their businesses. Among the sites whose traffic we could track for the year, the field was...

B2B Awards: Crain Nod Goes to Advanstar Scribe.(Advanstar Communications Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... Advanstar Communications finally got on the Crain Award board last week when American Business Media announced that Advanstar corporate editorial director Vernon Henry will receive this year's laurel, which honors "outstanding contributions to...

B2B People on the Move.(Helmers Publishing )(Brief Article)
February 23, 2004... Sixteen-year Ziff-Davis Media veteran Julie Tuttle last Wednesday (February 18) was promoted to publisher of Baseline, where she had been national associate publisher. She assumes the Baseline duties of Sloan Seymour, who continues as senior...

B2B Stockwatch--Early Surge Continues for Jupiter, Reuters.(JupiterMedia Corp)(Reuters Group)
February 23, 2004... While high-profile media merger news helped lift many media stocks two weeks ago, a bit of the reverse happened last week as Comcast's proposed takeover of Disney seemed to lose some momentum when Comcast declined to raise its bid while Viacom...