Min's B to B articles from January 2004

Min's B to B archives from January 2004

Auld Lang Syne: B2B Bigs Bring Novel Resolutions to the New Year...
January 5, 2004... The start of a new year is always time for optimism, uplifting thoughts, and heartfelt vows to do things better and differently. With that in mind, we asked a few B2B executives to tell us what's on their minds going into 2004. In most cases,...

...While Eyeing More Possibilities with Fewer Constraints.
January 5, 2004... At Forbes.com, meanwhile, president/CEO Jim Spanfeller, reflecting a competitive streak that has served him well in his media career (Ziff Davis Media/Inc./Playboy Enterprises/Newsweek), has his sights set squarely on his principal rival....

B2B Market Research: Companies Project Greater First-Quarter Spending on IT Products, Services.
January 5, 2004... If stated corporate intentions translate into billable orders, the first quarter just underway could be a very good one for IT vendors--and, possibly, those who depend on their advertising. According to ChangeWave Research, its 4,000...

B2B Boxscores (October '03): Signals Still Shaky in Broadcast/Video.
January 5, 2004... We'd love to start the new year out with some glad tidings, but there's little joy to be found in the struggling Broadcast/Video category. A brutal September (see min's b2b, 11/24/03) left the sector panting for any breath of good news, but...

B2B New Media Report: Is Spending on Search Ads Robbing Peter to Pay Paul?...
January 5, 2004... Search is all the rage, but is it really all that? After all, market research aggregator eMarketer last week revealed that the well-hyped spike in first-half 2003 online ad revenues actually would have been a revenue drop if the monstrous...

...Maybe Not, If Business Model Delivers More Cash-per-Click.
January 5, 2004... The benefit for the publisher, says Matlick, is a higher price per click (PPC), which he claims is often $3 to $7 or more for some categories. IndustryBrains also uses a bidding system, so the publisher has the opportunity to goose the value of...

B2B Boxscores (October): Page Drain Eases in Vertical/Special Interest Books.
January 5, 2004... There hasn't been much to crow about in our eclectic Vertical/Special Interest sector, but October results offered a bit of a reprieve from recent poor business performance. It isn't so much that there's any real good news as that there is...

B2B People on the Move.
January 5, 2004... Walter Hodge (ex-Automobile) returned to Dow Jones as global reports sales manager. Oversight duties include all financial reports, including Mutual Fund Reviews and Quarterly Stock Market Reviews...Carl Pugh has left Penton Media to become...

A New Year's Letter from Our Publisher.
January 5, 2004... Dear min's b2b readers, Coming off a challenging year for all publishers, the media community still had much to celebrate in 2003 and min and its sister properties were there to salute the many successful media people and their magazines....

B2B M&A Outlook: End of Lean Years Should Pave the Way for Better M&A...
January 12, 2004... Media investment banks wouldn't get far if they issued annual outlooks saying the M&A market was on the fritz, with all signals for the near-term future pointing south. So it comes as little surprise that DeSilva & Phillips' 2004 "Insider's...

...With Heated Courtship of Med Properties, Brisk Play from Several Newcomers.
January 12, 2004... This year to come, there is likely to be continued lively action in healthcare and medical journals, one of the few bright lights in 2003 activity. Some of last year's key players--the U.K.'s Taylor & Francis Group, plus Advanstar...

B2B Market Research: Reports of the Death of Electronic Commerce May Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.
January 12, 2004... Dot.com bust or no, IT investments in electronic commerce appear to be on the mend. According to new data from Forrester Research, e-commerce budgets for 2004 should surpass the rest of IT budgets, with about 75% of surveyed companies...

B2B Boxscores (November '03): Is Developer/Tech Sector Becoming a Permanent Wreck?
January 12, 2004... This chart, illustrating another trying month in the Developer/Technical sector, helps explain why this group fares so poorly in our Magazine Category Boxscores, charted later in this issue. Unlike the Healthcare/Pharmaceutical group, these 21...

B2B People on the Move.
January 12, 2004... Mike DeBartolo (ex-Glamour/Money) last Tuesday (January 6) was promoted to executive VP of Fairchild Publications' B2B division (DNR/Footwear News/Supermarket News/HFN, etc.). DeBartolo, a longtime colleague of Fairchild president/CEO Mary...

B2B Boxscores (November '03): Minor Relapse is Remedied in Healthcare/Rx Field.
January 12, 2004... A burst in November spending in such titles as Contemporary Long Term Care and Drug Store News were contributing factors in a month that helped restore the mostly yearlong bloom on this prosperous B2B magazine category after a bit of an October...

B2B People on the Move.
January 12, 2004... Primedia has named Bill Gloede editor of Audio Video Interiors, which, via the just-released March/April issue, is being reconstituted into the bimonthly Connected Guide to the Digital Home (a hot area that both Ziff Davis and CMP Media are...

Magazine Category Boxscores: Some Gain, Much Pain Seen As 2003 Wound Down.
January 12, 2004... If year-to-date advertising results through November held through yearend 2003, it wasn't a very merry Christmas for about two-thirds of 15 major B2B categories tracked for us by CMR. Only four of the 15 groups were up in...

B2B Stockwatch: Long, Strange Trip Produces Near-Unanimous Winners in 2003.
January 12, 2004... No question, 2003 was a rough-and-tumble year for our B2B stocks. There was many an issue when most or all of our charted companies were down on the week, down on the year, and, sometimes, down on their luck. But B2B has always been resilient,...

B2B M&A Outlook: Few Mourn 2003, But Whitestone Says B2B M&A Outpaced 2002, Sees Ripe Conditions for '04.
January 19, 2004... If this year is anything like last year (many in B2B hope it won't be), trade magazine/trade show M&A action will exceed its pace in 2003, much as last year exceeded 2002. That's according to the latest volume of Who's Buying Whom from M&A...

B2B Association Management: 101 Takes Group Approach to IT Compliance Issues, Education.
January 19, 2004... With companies spending so much more on IT products and services, and with IT security issues now a paramount concern, corporate compliance with IT regulations has become more important than ever. With this in mind, Microsoft Certified...

B2B Boxscores (November '03): Month-Over-Month Improves Again in Electronics Sector.
January 19, 2004... Our group of 23 Electronics magazines can use a little good news as much as anyone, so we have a smidgeon of it. Following on the heels of some October gains over September, the group's collective November results again show modest improvement...

B2B New Media Boxscores: Holidays Gobble November Traffic, But Mad Cow Could Kindle December Action.
January 19, 2004... It is as traditional as dried out turkey and gelatinous cranberry sauce shaped like a ribbed sewer pipe. Fewer workdays and the opening of the holiday consumer frenzy chill November B2B traffic faster than Aunt Clara's hissy fit ruins another...

B2B Boxscores (November '03): Finance Books Bank Fourth Straight Ad-Spending Spurt.
January 19, 2004... It takes more than one or two major events to reverse several years of business turmoil. Reaching rock bottom takes time, and so does coming back from the edge. But the Banking/Finance sector, by having posted its fourth consecutive month of...

B2B People on the Move.
January 19, 2004... Heather Myers joined Scholastic as senior VP/strategic planning & business development; the former Universal Studios executive will focus principally on resource allocation, business development, and new business ventures....Stop the presses!...

B2B Stockwatch: Everyone Looks Good Two Weeks In.
January 19, 2004... It's hard to reach too many grand conclusions after only two weeks of market action. But it's pretty easy to say that most publicly held B2B companies so far are doing good to great on year-to-date results, with JupiterMedia, Reuters Group,...

B2B Trade Shows: Does Flurry of New Events Mean the Trade Show Blues Are Old News?
January 26, 2004... In the past week alone, Advanstar Communications--following through on a pledge to become a bigger player in healthcare/prescription drugs--announced the May debut of Pharmaceutical Executive's World Congress on Pharmaceutical Marketing in...

BIN Spin (November): Spending Up (But Not Enough), Pages Down (A Little Too Much).
January 26, 2004... Once again, B2B print ad spending inched up while ad pages declined in November Business Information Network figures released last week by American Business Media, which acknowledged that the results were less robust than it had hoped (or...

B2B M&A: PBI Buys SRIC to Bolster Chemical Week Properties...
January 26, 2004... Last summer, in a magazine article on consolidation in the scientific/technical publishing business, SRI Consulting president Joseph Esposito sagely noted that publishers of scientific data faced growing competition from each other as well as...

...While B2Bportales Beefs Up Latin American Portfolio Via Keller Publishing Buy.
January 26, 2004... In other M&A developments, Coral Gables, FL-based B2Bportales, an affiliate of 100-year-old Latin American publishing/printing powerhouse Carvajal, last week acquired five B2B titles from Keller International Publishing (Great Neck, NY). The...

B2B Boxscores (November '03): Foodservice Stays in the Black--and in the Green.
January 26, 2004... It seems that more positive signs are showing up in B2B by the day; positive signs of another kind--the plus sign kind--have become a regular feature in our monthly review of the Foodservice magazine sector. It isn't that every book is doing...

B2B New Media Report: As Search Scene Goes Vertical, GlobalSpec Wants to Out- Google Google...
January 26, 2004... Oh, what the search craze has wrought! The success of paid search listings and contextual advertising in the past year is driving the market toward ever more products and models bunched around the Internet's most common activity, searching for...

...By Teaming with Mag Sites on "Deep-Dive" Approach for Its Engineering Audience...
January 26, 2004... What does this mean to other B2B publishers? First and foremost, GlobalSpec is hunting for relevant content. It is actively spidering engineering sites for material to include in its meta-base. Publishers are approaching the firm, which is...

...So Publishers Should Prepare to Partner with Narrowcasting "Super Portals".
January 26, 2004... The secret to making the vertical search model work for GlobalSpec is registration. Access to the engine is free to users in exchange for their personal and professional information, which lets the company generate sales leads for the vendors,...

B2B People on the Move.
January 26, 2004... Advanstar Communications last week added the Luxury Travel Expo to John McMahon's duty roster; McMahon, who joined the company six years ago, currently is group publisher of Advanstar's Premier publishing business, which includes Premier Hotels...

B2B Stockwatch: Look for Peak Performance from Multi-Platform B2B Companies.
January 26, 2004... It's been a pretty good week when only four of the 11 B2B companies tracked here are down for the period, and none by more than 2%. But that's what happened on last week's action, with VerticalNet--easily the smallest company listed...