B2B Beat
By Andy Kowl
About Andy
Andy Kowl is a journalist and entrepreneurial publisher with more than 25 years' experience developing, marketing and growing publishing companies. As executive director of Next-Tech Markets of Rockville, Md., he helps B2B publishers increase advertising revenue and protect their brands. Kowl has been tackling publishing challenges throughout his career, from building America's largest, independent newsstand distribution system to currently organizing dozens of niche, vertical publishers to sell ads together. As president of a division of UCG, one of the top five U.S. B2B information companies, his beat included technology, real estate, credit unions, car dealers and government contractors. He is convinced B2B publishing has become an entirely different business than consumer publishing.Pub Talk
Is Yahoo asking itself the right questions?
May 21, 2013After the news broke about Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr, I paid a visit to Yahoo.Com (it has been quite a...
Publishers' Dojo
Like practically everything else in publishing, licensing content is changing
May 20, 2013I'm blogging from the Worldwide Media Marketplace (WMM), an annual event hosted by the FIPP, the worldwide magazine media association....
Media Vent
On Meredith Corp. Buying, Closing Parenting and Babytalk
May 17, 2013A wise friend in the know suggested to me that the new acquisition by Meredith of the Bonnier titles should...
The Digital Domain
To Pay or Not to Pay ... That is the Changing Question
Apr 30, 2013In an era, where citizen "journalists," aggregators and content farms threaten to turn the information media companies produce into a...
Profit from Publishing!
The Decline of Publishing - Blame it on Johannes!
Apr 24, 2013Have you wondered when the decline of newspaper and magazines really began? Have you considered the decline began the day...
The Digital Market
What do you think of the new mobile Google Play?
Apr 18, 2013A blog came out recently on the redesigned Google Play for mobile. It appears Michael Siliski, group product manager for...
The Postal Pundit
Climbing Out Of The Rubble Of Sandy
Dec 11, 2012The entire Eastern seaboard, but now mostly New York and New Jersey, has been struggling through the aftermath of Sandy,...
Everything Publishing
A New Way To Be a Player
Sep 19, 2011If you want to increase affinity with your brand, grow traffic (up to 20x for some sites) and retention, create...
Byte Back
What Is “Interactive” Anyway? (Part 2)
Feb 28, 2011The real question, it turns out, is less about embedded multimedia than it is about personalization, relevance and immediacy of...
ABM Annual Conference Greatest Hits
Much has been written about ABM merging under the umbrella of SIIA. But much more was going on during the annual meeting of the 100+-year-old Association of Business Information & Media Companies a fortnight ago in Florida.
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Hijacked by Information Technology
There is a reason magazine publishers did not own their own printing presses. The investment was never worth it for even the largest publishing companies. Sure newspapers owned presses—they had daily needs, often multiple editions, and they had local distribution and urgent turn-arounds.
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The Crusade Against Advertising
Banner advertising is dead man walking. How do I know? I read that everywhere. Recent excerpts from leading commentators include “almost useless,” “days are numbered” and in Digiday last month, “hatred for the much-maligned banner has grown steadily.”
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Leveraging Functionality to Tap New Advertisers
Business-to-business started out as adjective, as in b-to-b publishing. Then it acquired the (now quaint) geek acronym B2B. Along the way the concept of B2B has been stretched and twisted.
When I heard Penton Media was about to merge a consulting firm with an online information resource, it looked like they were taking business-to-business literally. It has the elements of a case study with multiple ideas other B2B publishers should think about. Read More >>
When I heard Penton Media was about to merge a consulting firm with an online information resource, it looked like they were taking business-to-business literally. It has the elements of a case study with multiple ideas other B2B publishers should think about. Read More >>
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Preventing Death by Irrelevance
Of thousands of vertical B2B publications, at most a few dozen can afford to have fresh, original articles five days a week. Many of the better vertical sites hail from monthly magazine backgrounds, neither culturally nor organizationally conducive to daily news.
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