Min's B to B articles from February 2006

Min's B to B archives from February 2006

And They're Off! Winners, Whiners Charted in Yearend Boxscore Results.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
February 6, 2006... This week marks the beginning of our widely anticipated yearend 2005 Boxscores in the 17 ad categories we track with data vendor IMS/The Auditor. As usual, there are winners and losers in these exercises; some will gloat, others mope. ...

Boxscores (December 2005): Booming Government IT Spending = Big Business at Government Books.
February 6, 2006... A cursory look at yearend 2005 advertising figures for our small group of Government titles suggests that business is off and the numbers are down. But they are, and they aren't. Ad pages may be off at some titles, but a partial explanation...

Steve Smith on Digital Media: De-Googlization: Penton Queries Vertical Search.
February 6, 2006... Vertical search is just around the corner for business publishing. Or so I've been hearing for the last few years. The theory goes (and keeps going...and going) that professionals need more narrow precision search tools than Google and...

Boxscores (December 2005): Dispiriting December Leaves Developer/Tech Roughly Even on the Year.
February 6, 2006... When International Data Group's IDC research unit last week released its 2006 IT spending projections, it was a breath of fresh air for high-tech publishers everywhere, including those in our 17-title Developer/ Technical collection (whose...

Hi-Tech Shorts: IDG Ups the Ante in Lead-Management Wars.(International Data Group)(AccelaWorks Web response management system)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... As even the lowest-ranking B2B ad-sales person knows, it's all about the leads--how good they are and what advertising clients can do with them. To boost its lead-management capabilities, International Data Group last week inked a pact to...

101 Move Boosts Ad-Serving Capabilities.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... For reasons that become clearer every week, B2B companies are paying more attention to how, when, and to whom their targeted online ads are served and how results are tabulated. Another in a growing list of examples came when Federal...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005): Slicing & Dicing.
February 6, 2006... THE TOP 10 BY THE NUMBERS Monthly % difference (December 2005/2004) % Change % Change % Chg. Title YTD 2005 YTD 2004 YTD 1 Campus Technology 13.83 5 ...

b2b Boxscores (December): 1) Will Lawsuits, M&A Aftereffects Hinder an Already Hurting Healthcare Ad Market?(Company Profile)
February 6, 2006... It can be difficult to see the connection between advertising and either litigation or mergers and acquisitions costs. But we'll try here. Lately, news reports have been plastered with coverage of how pharmaceutical makers like Merck and...

b2b Boxscores (December): 2) More Automotive Is Winding Its Way to the Web--And Publishers Are Worried.
February 6, 2006... It's way to early to chant the death knell for automotive print advertising, but there are plenty of signs of serious illness. One of the most recent came with quarterly earnings reports from several major newspaper companies that showed...

D&P: Top 15 '05 Media M&A Take Almost Topped $5 Billion.
February 6, 2006... Even though one might question why, given the steady stream of dire advertising reports, it's no secret that 2005 was a booming year for mergers and acquisitions in the media industry. Just how big is shown in the DeSilva & Phillips chart...

M&A Briefs: AI Gains Pricing Power; Brit Ad Mogul Wants In On VNU Action.
February 6, 2006... Increasingly, B2Bs are concluding that data, and in particular pricing data, is where their fortunes lie. Companies as diverse as Hearst Business Media and Randall Reilly Publishing have built nice little profit centers gathering and then...

M&A Outlook: Will Ready Cash, Big PE Appetites Soon Spark the $100B Media Deal?(Mergers and Acquistions)
February 13, 2006... After several lean post-9/11 years earlier this decade, mergers and acquisitions seem poised to continue the record-setting pace seen in 2005. In fact, the easy availability of cheap cash and the thirst of investment funds for new projects...

No Rest for the Weary: Clinching Blockbuster Deals Can Mean Your Real Work Is Just Beginning.
February 13, 2006... What's the next trick when you've successfully overseen one of the biggest M&A blockbusters in your company's history? Well, let's just say you don't win the free trip to Disney World. You keep playing. "You can't just stop with what...

Canon CEO Cobert Heads Out After 27 Years and the $200M Company Sale.(Canon Communications)(Chief Executive Officer)(Brief Article)
February 13, 2006... If you like change, you've got to love B2B. Only six weeks into the new year, a third top-ranking executive has stepped aside. Nine months after it was sold to Apprise Media, Canon Communications last Thursday (February 9) announced that,...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005): Foodservice Mystery: Ad-Page Slump Produces Ad- Spending Bump.
February 13, 2006... There's an old saying, "People gotta eat." And so they do. And food companies--manufacturers, processors, packagers, warehousers, foodservice providers, and restaurateurs--have to stay on top of industry news. That's where our wide-ranging...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005): Computing's Strong Yearend Finish Can't Erase Memories of a Difficult Year.
February 13, 2006... The numbers below plot an interesting 2005 finish for our Computing Boxscore collection. Often the brunt of jokes during the publishing year, the sector actually closed out the year on a welcome positive note. After all, December ad pages...

M&A Monitor: Whitestone Flags Total Q4 Deal Dollar Growth at 55%.
February 13, 2006... No question these are tough times in the magazine business, with assaults on both advertising and circulation coming from all sides. But that simply isn't showing up in the values the M&A market--fueled principally by cash-laden private...

b2b Boxscores (December): Banking/Finance Winds Up '05 With Double-Digit Dollar Gains.
February 13, 2006... In 2005, the arrows on the bar graphs weren't always headed north in our busy Banking/Finance sector. But at the end of the day--with year-end figures through December now in the books--year-to-date revenue figures stood right where...

B2B People on the Move.
February 13, 2006... John Poulin last week was promoted to executive VP/CFO at Reed Business Information, one of the first high-level appointments under recently promoted RBI president/CEO Tad Smith. In his new role, Poulin--who had been CFO--will oversee RBI's...

Media Research: Outsell Output: Online Will Rule the Ad World, But B2Bs Can Benefit Handsomely.
February 20, 2006... Media mavens who believe online advertising will crush B2B in its path might find a few surprises in a new ad study from Outsell Inc. Although the group predicts great things ahead for digital advertising, it doesn't see it coming at B2B's...

Reversal of Fortune at Randall-Reilly Publishing:After Once Nearly Skidding Off Road, Trucking Media Company Regains Traction.
February 20, 2006... What happens when the economy crashes, paper and postal rates go through the roof, advertising revenues plunge 30% over three months, your bank schedules a "workout" meeting, and, in case things aren't bad enough, the company patriarch is...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005):Double-Digit December Drops at Three Books Dent Building's Yearend Tallies.
February 20, 2006... After singing the ad-sales praises of this strong category most of the year, we recently felt compelled to wonder, "Is Even Building Starting to Burp?" (min's b2b, 1/9/06) after less-than-the-customarily-stellar results for November...

Steve Smith on New Media Boxscores (December 2005): Construction Crashes, Books Bomb as Biz Burns Through a Chilly December.
February 20, 2006... December is the cruelest month for business information sites almost everywhere as e-commerce sites siphon off a great deal of at-work traffic (yes we all shop from the office now), and the shorter work month ensures traffic dips just about...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005): Down December Dents Engineering; Electronics Bounces Back Toward Par.
February 20, 2006... ENGINEERING AD PAGES AND REVENUES (January-December 2005/2004) Ad Pages Ad Pages Title (Publisher) YTD 2005 YTD 2004 1 Advanced Imaging (Cygnus) ...

B2B People on the Move.
February 20, 2006... Brion Palmer (ex-Reed Business Information) has joined Stamats Business Media as publisher of Interiors & Sources. He had managed RBI's hospitality portfolio (Restaurants & Institutions/Hotel/Food Service Equipment and Supplies, etc.) as...

B2B Profit & Loss: As VNU Ponders Fate, Reed Elsevier Plots Stock Buyback, M&A Programs.
February 20, 2006... Even as VNU NV wrestles with an assortment of buyout offers (latest proposal: a shareholder-led three-way split into units for publishing, media research, and market research), its rival Dutch media conglomerate, Reed Elsevier, last week...

min's b2b Exclusive:Major B2B Group Publishers Year-End 2005 Ad Pages (Part 1).
February 27, 2006... Anyone trying to gauge how media in general is expected to perform in five-year increments can check the current annual industry forecast from Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Folks curious about the likely fate this year of different types of...

In the Know on Trade Shows: BPA Venture Weds Attendee Counts, Demo Data.
February 27, 2006... As interested parties gathered for American Business Media's "Trade Show Summit" in New York last week assessed whether the balance of power has shifted from exhibitors to attendees (consensus: it has), conventions and events continued to...

Steve Smith on Digital Media: Google Threat Alert Update.
February 27, 2006... We've argued for months that Google may represent as much of a threat to content brands (and their core advertising businesses and brand integrity) online as it can be a help. So it's good to see we are not the only ones beating this drum....

B2B Boxscores (December 2005):1) Volume Books Keep Telecom Group Ad $$$ in the Black.
February 27, 2006... If your yearly advertising-revenue numbers are growing, it shouldn't much matter that ad pages are off by 4%. Right? Maybe, but it's probably not anything to build a business plan around. Anyway, that's the situation our Telecommunications...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005): 2) Broadcast Goes Flat in Year-end Finale.
February 27, 2006... As time--and the legislative process--goes on, there may be more and more overlap between the Telecommunications group charted above and the Broadcast/Video category detailed below. That's because the phone companies, worried by the cable...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005): Down December Dents Engineering While Electronics Bounces Back Toward Par (Take Two).
February 27, 2006... Due to a computing error in last week's issue, several yearend Boxscore figures in our Electronics group were misaligned, producing inaccurate figures for those titles--EE Product News, EE Times, and Semiconductor International-- and...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005):1) Travel Titles Close Out '05 With +20% Ad Revenue Gain.
February 27, 2006... The travel business has returned to prime time to such an extent that hotel chains are jacking up room rates by 8-10% and even some of airlines, hampered by price-hike resistant fliers and burdened by sky-high fuel costs, are inching their...

B2B Boxscores (December 2005): 2) Transportation Finishes Turbulent Year on Mild Upswing.
February 27, 2006... This sector is still riding in rough seas, according to IMS/The Auditor. But there is improvement. November's steep -20.95% ad-page plunge was halved in year-end December action to -10.24%. Year-to-date mark is -2.75%, indicating that much...

B2B People on the Move.
February 27, 2006... Following a string of acquisitions in financial services media markets last year, Spire Capital-backed Highline Media Thursday (February 23) promoted Thomas Fowler to executive VP; he had been VP/group publisher of the Financial Magazine...

B2B Stockwatch: In Down Week, Newly Restructured DJ Stands Alone On Upside.
February 27, 2006... Based on Thursday's Market Close (2/23/06) Company Symbol Close 1 Week % Chg. YTD %Chg Dow Jones & Co. DJ 39.27 2.08% 10.65% Elsevier N.V. ENL 27.07 -0.62% -3.11% JupiterMedia Corp....