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death of print
Forbes memo confirms print, Web staff merging
Ending a longstanding internal split that dates back to the days of the first dotcom boom, Forbes Media is merging the staff which puts out the conservative-leaning business magazine and its online component, which run separately and with a ludicrous amount of mutual suspicion and jealousy. (Valleywag had gotten wind of these plans last month.) An internal memo sent by CEO Steve Forbes to staff says that print and online sales and marketing will be immediately integrated, reporting up to an "office of the chairman" which includes Forbes.com publisher Jim Spanfeller, whom rumors had previously pegged as the head of the combined operation. Integration of the Web and print editorial staff won't happen until early 2009. Translation: No one in the newsroom will know what's happening to their job until next year. Here's the memo: More » -
politics
Forbes, Cox pay blogs to run anti-gay-marriage ads
Forbes.com, the online arm of the right-wing business magazine, is offering to pay blogs to run a political ad supporting a ban on gay marriage. The price: $2.85 per thousand pageviews. The ad advocates the passage of Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative. The blogs in question are part of Forbes's Business and Financial Blog Network, an online-ad network which places ads sold by Forbes salespeople on independent sites. The network itself is run by Adify, an ad-technology company now owned by Cox, the media-and-cable-TV conglomerate. The ad won't run automatically, according to an email from Sharon Gitelle, who's listed on Forbes.com as a "membership" contact; bloggers must specifically choose it. Politics aside, a $2.85 CPM, or cost per thousand pageviews, is nothing to sneeze at in these tough economic times. Reached on the phone, Gitelle said, "I'm not talking to Valleywag." So we know this much: She's no dummy! Here's the email she sent: More » -
leaks
Two promoted at Forbes
Something is stirring at Forbes Media, the publisher of Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, two similarly named but otherwise uncooperative publications. Bill Baldwin, the paper tiger who runs print editorial, has issued a memo to his staff announcing two promotions. The Dickensianly named Stewart Pinkerton "will continue to spend a lot of his time overseeing the contributions of print writers to Forbes.com and vice versa." The other guy, Tom Post, will remain another faceless middle-management drone, but we're inclined to like the guy, since he went to the University of Chicago. More » -
death of print
Forbes.com, Forbes careerists gird for battle
David Churbuck, the founder of Forbes.com (and sweaty prep-school wrestling partner of Fake Steve Jobs blogger turned boring Newsweek columnist Dan Lyons), has weighed in on the chaos enveloping his former employer, the investor-friendly, snarkier-than-thou business magazine. Churbuck, like many Forbes alumni, seems to know more of what's going on than its current employees. The publication, now backed by Silicon Valley investment house Elevation Partners, is colliding together its Web and print editorial teams, and the result could be nuclear, as editors and writers scramble for position in the new order. Churbuck observes that the split between print and online had its roots in a plan to spin off Forbes.com in an IPO during the go-go late '90s; even after plans for an IPO were scrapped, the division persisted. Now, Elevation is pushing to consolidate the staffs, Churbuck says. Separately, a tipster reports several personnel moves happening at Forbes. Are they coincidence, or a sign of people positioning their own careers for the coming upheaval? Hard to say. More » -
death of print
Forbes writers clueless on magazine's fate
A high-profile New York magazine company handing control of its flagship print property to a Web executive would be a great story about the transformation of media. Normally, writers at Forbes would be all over it — if it weren't happening to them. Yesterday's rumor about Forbes Media merging the magazine and Forbes.com — two distinct operations, housed in separate offices, whose managers don't get along — and tapping Forbes.com chief Jim Spanfeller to run the combination has provoked a collective wave of head-scratching from current and former Forbesians. Could it happen? One writer tells us that Forbes management has denied the rumor so unconvincingly that workers there are all concluding it must be true. "I work at Forbes. I'll be the last to know," says one. He disputes the idea that Forbes and its website don't work well together, giving several examples of Web and print writers crossing the line — but the fact that those are notable, rather than routine, just highlights Forbes's lack of cooperation. His note: More » -
death of print
Forbes.com exacts revenge of nerds on Forbes
Most magazines keep their Web and print staffs apart, a legacy of petty rivalries, bureaucratic turf wars, and a fear of change. But Forbes Media has elevated balkanization into an art form. The two sides of the company barely speak to each other. The Forbes family tolerated this, but Elevation Partners, the Silicon Valley private-equity fund which counts Bono as a partner and now owns 40 percent of Forbes is not so patient. A tipster tells us that a "big shakeup" is coming, with the editorial staffs of both magazine and website getting "smashed together." More » -
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online advertising
Publishers try to pop ad-network bubble
Seven years ago there were less than 50 online ad networks. Today there are more than 300. But that number could shrink just as quickly, reports Lucia Moses in MediaWeek. At least, that's what her executive sources at publishers Rodale, Martha Stewart and Forbes hope. Rodale's MaryAnn Bekkedahl says that when her company experimented with an ad network, it served ads in the wrong language, broke exclusive arrangements with sponsors, and tried to put a fast-food ad in on a fitness site. Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller tells Moses Forbes has the solution: It offers advertising clients its own third-party sites handpicked by the company for editorial compatibility. Martha Stewart Livig Omnimedia does the same thing with its Martha’s Circle, co-CEO Wenda Harris Millard says, because “magazines are wonderful brands and the networks are not going to protect [them]." But we know what's really going on here. More » -
geek love
Marrying into billions still acceptable so long as you're a smart girl
Forbes lays on the Cosmo when it comes to finding wives for the rich: "Today, there are just 110 eligible 10-figure bachelors, including divorced men, in the world. So what does it take to marry one? For starters, looks are great—but brains are even better." Take Melanie Craft, the romance-novelist wife of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. A wife with her own career can stay busy and well-off. The more successful she is on her own, the more time her guy has to hire girls for rides in his Love Copter. And the less money he'll have to hand over in a future settlement. Everybody wins! (Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images) -
blogging for dollars
Dan Lyons quits Fake Steve Jobs before the real Steve Jobs drops dead on him
In humor, timing is everything. And death just ain't that funny. That's why Dan Lyons is quitting the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog. True, he's planning to turn his Fake Steve Jobs schtick into a second book. And his new job as Newsweek's gadget columnist may require more decorous relations with Apple — note that Newsweek, usually the object of favored treatment by Apple PR, didn't get an early iPhone 3G to review. But the real reason why Lyons is dropping Fake Steve? Because the state of the real Apple CEO's health had Lyons scared. More » -
fake steve jobs
Dan Lyons going to Newsweek makes encounter with Real Steve Jobs almost inevitable
Newsweek, along with Time, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, is on the short list of publications that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will actually deign to meet and speak with. Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs, is taking over as the lead tech reporter at Newsweek. That leads us to a tantalizing conclusion: It can't be long before Fake Steve Jobs and Real Steve Jobs meet in person. Like the attempt at discovering the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider, the unintended consequences could involve the earth folding in on itself. We wait with bated breath.
Forbes
San Francisco, 5:12 AM
Sun Nov 23
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