Valleywag: Idg

Layoffs at PC World

Owen Thomas — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:40:00 PDT

A tipster writes: "PC World continued its slide into the trashcan of history yesterday; 6 more employees were laid off yesterday; a couple in art, a couple in editorial and a couple of support staff." The IDG-owned print monthly has held up better than its main rival, PC Magazine, but beloved editor Harry McCracken left in May to launch his startup, Technologizer. Anyone know more?

IDG's game expo stiffs

Paul Boutin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:40:00 PDT

After a weak start last year, trade mag and conference company IDG's attempt at a trade show for videogames looks to be an outright flop. Staff at AOL's Big Download blog contacted all the big game makers and came up with a pretty thin attendee list for next month's show in Los Angeles.

Less than six weeks before the second edition of the event is supposed to begin, the official E For All web site has listed Microsoft and Electronic Arts as the only major game publishers who will be exhibiting at the show this year. THQ and Konami, both of whom attended E For All in 2007, have no current plans to attend the 2008 event.

Big Download has also learned via their respective PR reps that a large number of other major gaming publishers also have no current plans to attend. That list includes Sony, Midway, Atari, Sega, Warner Bros. Interactive, NCsoft, LucasArts, Sony Online, Square Enix, Codemasters, Gamecock, Southpeak, Disney Interactive and Capcom. PR reps for Nintendo, 2K Games and Activision did not yet know whether or not their respective companies would be attending.

Harry McCracken leaving PC World to go startup

Owen Thomas — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:00:00 PDT

PC World editor-in-chief Harry McCracken is leaving the magazine next month to work on his own technology website which, to our relief, he does not describe as a "blog." [Folio]

InfoWorld making 37 percent profit margin one year after ditching print

Jackson West — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:00:00 PDT

International Data Group, the tech publisher, was losing money every time it printed signature title InfoWorld. After kicking the paper habit, the title is now making $1.6 million per month in revenue, and approximately $592,000 net profit, the Times reports:

In 2002, 86 percent of the revenue from IDG's publications came from print and 14 percent online. These days, 52 percent of the revenue is from online ads, while 48 percent is from the print side.

Sure, it serves a technology niche with a well-connected audience and advertisers inclined to turn to the Web. But where technology publishing goes, general interest content is sure to follow, goes the thinking. Only one hole in that theory: CNET.

Charlotte McCormack, take a bow

Paul Boutin — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:02:32 PST

IDG's public relations manager let Valleywag into Macworld in force, without requiring us to invoke our connections to print publications. She even forgave me for screwing up my registration. Charlotte, can you toss us out sometime Thursday? We have a reputation to maintain.

Brad Stone of the New York Times has picked ...

Owen Thomas — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:56:03 PDT

Brad Stone of the New York Times has picked up, belatedly, that the Industry Standard, the fast-falling standard-bearer magazine of the dotcom boom, will be reborn as an online-only publication. A source tells us that IDG, the publisher of the new Standard, had pegged a relaunch date in less than a week. One small problem: As Stone points out, IDG has yet to hire an editor-in-chief. In fact, we hear that the initial plan for the website didn't even include a top editor. [Bits]

The return of The Industry Standard

Owen Thomas — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:22:45 PDT

Could it be true? Eric Savitz of Barron's blogs about the apparent comeback of his former employer, The Industry Standard. The weekly tech trade magazine inflated, and imploded, more or less in sync with the dotcom bubble; shuttered by owner IDG, it's seen a series of mostly pathetic attempts to resuscitate its website, all of which floundered. But the website now promises that the Standard is "coming back." Odd timing, given Time Inc.'s shuttering of Business 2.0, and the discontinuation of the Red Herring's print edition. Founder John Battelle tersely wishes the new Standard luck. I'm betting that the publication bypasses print and goes straight to the Web — just like Battelle's current venture.

E for All videogame powwow implodes

Mary Jane Irwin — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:33:40 PDT

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual videogame trade show, was recently downsized from 60,000 attendees to a scant 3,000 or so. Why? Because exhibitors were sick of the exorbitant costs associated with putting together a booth in the cavernous Los Angeles Convention Center, and wanted an insidery event, not one open to all comers. Seeing a void left, IDG Entertainment, publisher of GamePro and the now defunct GameStar (a sort of Maxim for videogames), swooped in to host E For All. It's a public event, unlike the new E3's restricted-access gathering, and tickets for the four-day show go for $90. There's one problem: Exhibitors have no desire to attend.

Every day the list of companies planning to avoid the show expands — the number actually outnumbers confirmed exhibitors. So far Capcom, Microsoft, Midway, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment of America, and Sony Online Entertainment have announced they will not attend. In fact the only confirmed, recognizable names are Electronic Arts, Konami, Namco Bandai, Nintendo and THQ.

There's a valuable lesson here. Don't try to fill a convention void created by fleeing exhibitors. The reason E3's organizer, the Entertainment Software Association, moved the expo to an intimate setting in Santa Monica was to avoid the expenses associated with the LA Convention Center. Surely companies would be less than thrilled to return to the venue. E For All also comes at the tail end of a months-long trade-show circuit that began with E3, traveled to Leipzig for the recently concluded Games Convention, and finishing with the Tokyo Game Show at the end of September. Sheer exhaustion, if nothing else, seems as good a reason as any to avoid it.