ContentBiz articles from June 2001

ContentBiz archives from June 2001

FanTeamLink(R) Email News Sells Tens of Thousands of Sports Fans $29 Year Subscriptions.
June 7, 2001... CASE STUDY CHALLENGE: Back in 1994, Pivotal Communications CEO Bruce Piefke saw a big need in the sports media marketplace. His Director of Marketing John Piccirillo explains, "Sports teams' Information Directors were standing in front of...

MagPortal.com Switches to Syndication Sales Business Model.
June 7, 2001... Inspired by Moreover (who aggregate and distribute hotlinked business news headlines from 1,800 publications), former destination site MagPortal.com recently switched business models from selling ads to licensing its content. ...

550+ Editors Shop for Great Journalism at FeatureWell.
June 7, 2001... Featurewell's founder and CEO David Wallis revealed to ContentBiz that his site has sold more than $60,000 worth of syndicated "great journalism" since its launch in October 2000. The site functions as a store where editors of major magazines,...

Should Publishers Worry About Ad Blocking Software? SaveTheFreeWeb.com's Bill Dimm Explains Reality.
June 14, 2001... A debate has been raging among content industry pundits since ad blocking software company interMute recently announced it would be on multiple millions of PCs by the end of 2002. Some people say publishers with Web ad revenues should be very,...

Trouble Ahead as Trade Magazines Prefer Opt-Out to Gather Email Rental "Permissions".
June 14, 2001... As a proponent of opt-in versus opt-out email name gathering, Tom Kraemer, CMP Media's Group Director of Customer Relationship Marketing, was very much the odd man out at this week's Circulation Management Conference & Expo in New York....

Publisher O'Reilly Rallies its 50 Most Influential Fans to Spread the Buzz Online.
June 14, 2001... CASE STUDY CHALLENGE: After a year of solid networking, last August Simone Paddock, Online Evangelist for technical book publisher O'Reilly, had contacts with almost anyone who counted in the community -- including influential writers,...

READER RESPONSE: Tom Kraemer of CMP Media on Opt-In vs. Opt-Out Email Permissions for Rentals.
June 21, 2001... Dear Editor: Thanks for the mention in your article about opt-out. Perhaps we at CMP Media are overly cautious. That comes from dealing with a market made up of webmasters and network experts who can put our servers out of operation if we...

A Market Research Expert's Advice on Online Subscription Price Testing (Hint: Don't).
June 21, 2001... The "MR" in MRNews.com stands for "Market Research," so when we heard this online publication switched from free to paid in January, we called up publisher Philip Kleinman in the UK to find out how he surveyed readers about the price increase....

How FictionWise Sells More eBooks Than Anyone Else, Including Amazon.
June 21, 2001... CHALLENGE: In the spring of 2000 brothers Steve and Scott Pendergrast started kicking around the idea of launching a Web site to sell eBooks. Neither came from a publishing background - - Steve was a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff...

The Week: Anne Advises Online Publishers to Toughen Up on Subscription Pricing.
June 21, 2001... Oh what misery pricing new subscription products is. I don't know about you, but I've spent years pricing new products and invariably come up wrong. (Most infamous: the time when my 1996 price tests revealed Internet execs would be willing to...

25% of MessageFriends.com Service Convert from Free to Paid.
June 28, 2001... MessageFriends.com is only tangentially in the content industry. The site allows members to add bulletin board functionality to enhance their own site's content. This service was originally free; but when Brian Welch, President of Perfect...

How Interest!ALERT is Taking Clients From ScreamingMedia.
June 28, 2001... CASE STUDY We were idly surfing one day when we came across the Interest!ALERT Web site. To be frank it looks mom-and-pop-ish. Something a part-time entrepreneur whipped up in their home office. But, we diligently shot over an email to...

Anne's Column: Three eBook Revenue Streams for Periodicals Publishers.
June 28, 2001... I haven't previously focused on eBooks much because most ContentBiz subscribers are in the online periodical or news industry. However, eBooks are now becoming an important revenue stream for many of you just as printed books and special...