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E-Mail: e-mail the Publisher
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AIM: talkingnewmedia
Skype: talkingnewmedia
Why Talking New Media?:
There are lots of news sites and blogs dedicated to New Media. But with the possible exception of paidContent -- which does a great job, by the way -- few concentrate on the business side of what is happening to editors, publishers, ad directors, and others in the modern world of publishing. Fewer still have a editorial mission to help publishers succeed online and in mobile and tablet publishing.
"If I have to read one more story of some meeting somewhere that editors attend to discuss the fate of their industry . . ." OK, that's not possible, but the fact is that publishing is a business, and ad sales and marketing are just as (and maybe more) important than the endless discussions of the merits of paywalls.
Talking New Media is about how publishers and publishing entrepreneurs can make a success of their businesses online, on tablets, on mobile devices, and, I suppose, in print.
Photoblogging Friday:
Every Friday TNM engages in the blog tradition of cat blogging -- only without the cats. Cat blogging goes back to 2003 when Kevin Drum, then the publisher of Calpundit, started publishing pictures of his cat, Inkblot. Soon other bloggers started doing the same. Kevin is now at Mother Jones, but the tradition continues, often with variations (like dogs, pictures out your backyard window, etc.)
The TNM tradition is to publish photography -- we call it Photoblogging Friday (PbF). In this endeavor TNM is assisted by Dean Brierly, the publisher of the Photographer's Speak web site. Dean will select the picture: sometimes a shot from a photographer he has interviewed for his site, sometime his own work. Other times PbF will take a look at the history of photography, like this look at old San Francisco, or this look at the restored silent film Metropolis.
TNM Morning Newsletter:
Every Tuesday through Saturday morning, TNM produces a morning newsletter made up of the previous days posts, as well as any new posts from early that morning. For those that can not visit TNM every day, this is a great way to stay up-to-date.
The newsletter is compact, without much graphics, and free. All you have to do is sign-up. You can do that by providing your e-mail address in the form found on the top-left of every page. TNM does not use e-mail addresses for promotion, does not sell the addresses, and is not a spammer -- so fear not.
About the Publisher:
Douglas Hebbard, that's me starting into the cam up there, has been in the media business professionally since 1981.
After getting my "J" degree from Central Michigan University I left the midwest for Los Angeles. After looking for editorial positions, and being offered a couple, I accepted a job in the phone room of the Hearst paper, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. The job paid the rent and kept open the possibility of one day applying to the news room. Oh yeah, the position paid commission weekly -- first commission check = five cents. Within a year I was moved to outside sales where he ran real estate (one man show). In 1983 I led the launch of a real estate tabloid and fought the L.A. Times for display advertising.
The Herald Examiner Building, designed by Julia Morgan, the same architect that built the Hearst Castle in San Simeon. ☞
Eventually I moved to the Santa Monica Evening Outlook (later, just the Outlook), a Copley Newspaper as classified sales manager. In 1988 he moved to Northern California to be classified advertising manager at The Valley Times, in Pleasanton -- then owned by Lesher Communications, later Knight-Ridder. Later I was promoted to ad director, and served a very interesting six months as circulation director (great experience with a great group of people).
In late 1991 a recruiter contacted me about a publisher position at McGraw-Hill in San Francisco. They were looking for someone with a newspaper background to run their construction daily, and one look at the corner office overlooking the bay and the financial district I was hooked. While managing the Daily Pacific Builder, I launched my first magazine, CM Magazine. "CM" supposedly stood for construction management, but the team and I just like the branding -- sort of like GQ, who cares what it stands for. It was successful right out of the gate because our costs were negligible because we already had a full staff dealing with the newspaper.
What followed this was magazine job offers, including my first exclusively trade magazine job as publisher of Roads & Bridges for a company in the Chicago area. After five and half years I moved over to Reed Business Information to publish two industrial magazines. While publisher of R&B, min magazine named it Most Improved B2B Magazine. Not a big deal really, but sadly I found out about it the day after I had accepted the position at Reed. Oh well.
The important thing for TNM readers to know is that it was while at McGraw-Hill in San Francisco that my first experiences with the Internet occurred, and it was there that I became convinced that the web was where publishers needed to experiment. I struggled to convince media owners of the potential of the web, something just about everyone in media has experienced. Sadly, our industries are still way behind, though we are starting to see some leadership finally appear at some of the better media companies.
This site is about what these leaders are doing, about what small publishers and entrepreneurs need to know to succeed online, in mobile, on tablets and e-readers. The goal of TNM, though, is not just to inform you-the-reader, but to education me-the-publisher, as well. Because it is through generating new posts each week day that I will be able to stay on top of developments in publishing. I hope you find the news and information timely and useful, and the opinions I express thought provoking. If so, let me know; if not, let me know.
Thank you.
