Phew, glad that's over; B2B ad pages decline 28.6% in 2009; construction, tech and transportation hurt the most

I've written a couple of times (recently here and here) about the modest recovery some B2B publications seem to be enjoying, as well as the less than robust recovery others are experiencing. But for just about everyone, 2009 was a downer.

American Business Media (ABM) released (PDF link) their December report on ad pages for 2009 and it confirms what everyone knew: 2009 sucked. Ad pages declined 28.56 percent, and the year did not really improve much as December ad pages were still down 27.94 percent.

While certain categories were hit harder than others, only the agriculture category was lucky enough not to be hit with a double digit decline, falling only 8.91 percent.

When considering 2009 B2B performance, there are a couple questions that need to be answered to explain the huge declines:

1. How much of this can be explained by the recession -- after all, the recession has been described as the worst since the Great Depression
2. How much of this can be explained by the rise of electronic publishing alternatives -- did the web and mobile media finally deliver a fatal blow to B2B print?
3. How much of this is corporate incompetence, something few want to talk about -- PE firms continue to dominate the industry, while other companies are run like social experiments gone amuck.

Beta testers are waiting; three to six month window for publishers to test tablet apps, make mistakes

You gotta love PC World. The magazine -- web site really -- probably publishes more pieces on Apple's iPad than any other on the web and they like to have it both ways.

Type in "iPad" on the site and the search results will hand you back 394 articles with titles like iPad for Movies? Call My Chiropractor ... or Why iPad is the 'Children's Toy of the Year'.

The one that caught my attention this morning was iPad Pre-Orders: For Idiots Only. Clearly PC World wants to be the News of the World for the tech community as it publishes ever more outlandish opinions about goings on in the tech arena. Presumably it drives traffic, right?

For me, the idea that those that rushed to place their iPad pre-orders last week were "idiots" is . . . idiotic. They aren't idiots, they are useful beta-testers.

My first computer purchase was an Apple 2e some time in 1983, about a year before Jobs introduced the first Macintosh. Since that time I have been a cautious computer buyer, always letting others be first in line to buy the latest and greatest. This is the way I was when I bought my first iPhone, I waited six months and then dove in.

These iPad beta testers are an amazing resource. The early iPad buyers will be able the ones that will make or break the iPad -- their opinions will drive sales, force Apple to make changes to the product, and generally make my purchase worthwhile. God bless early adopters.

Remember this chart? I posted it with a story about iPad sales and adoption rates. I think it is important enough to re-post here. It shows that early iPhone sales, despite all the positive press, were actually low when compared to the rush of buyers for the 3G models that were introduced one year after the initial product introduction.

In addition to introducing 3G to their phones, Apple's second generation iPhone also came with the second generation of the OS. It was this development that introduced the app store and the rush that followed to create new applications for the device.

This time around, however, apps will be an integral part of the device from Day One. What this means is that those companies that can get their first iPad apps ready soon will have about six months to work out the kinks, to experiment.

Read More >

Nielsen to close Sales & Marketing Management

BtoBOnline is reporting that Nielsen Business Media is shutting down another of its magazines, this time Sales & Marketing Management.  Last week Nielsen sold off its food group to Stagnito Media. The group included once powerful brands Progressive Grocer, Convenience Store News and The Gourmet Retailer.

Late last year Nielsen announced that it would shutter Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Review after the company could not find a buyer for the properties after selling Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. Eventually both titles were saved when buyers were found keep the brands alive.

RIM has a significant Blackberry loyalty problem; users eye iPhone and Android smartphone alternatives

Apple's iPhone and Google's new Android phones are making in roads in Research in Motion's (RIM) Blackberry user base, according to Crowd Science, an online market research and audience measurement company.

Crowd Science asked 1,140 smart phone users about their product loyalty and what phones they would consider the next time they purchase a smartphone. Almost 40 percent of Blackberry users are considering switching to the iPhone, and 32 percent said they were considering the Android based Nexus One phone. In comparison, only nine percent of iPhone users are looking at the Google's Nexus One phone.

"These results show that the restlessness of Blackberry users with their current brand hasn't just been driven by the allure of iPhone. Rather, Blackberry as a brand just isn't garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems," said John Martin, CEO of Crowd Science.

The study points out the changing face of smartphone as users begin to look to their phones for services other than e-mail and phone calls.  In addition, RIM's primary advantage when selling the Blackberry, enterprise level support, is being eroded as companies are able to accommodate the newer smartphones.

For publishers, the study again points to the iPhone as the device of choice when creating publishing applications. "iPhone users have a significantly higher incidence of past-seven-day downloading of PAID applications than any other group of smartphone users surveyed," the report states.

You can access a PDF of the report here.

Apple spells out its 3G data plans for the iPad; monthly costs could be a drag on publisher's subscription plans

On Friday Apple began taking pre-orders for its Wi-Fi only (that is, without 3G) iPad models. Although sales started quickly, they also just as quickly slowed.

Today Apple spelled out what its 3G plans will look like.  Working still with AT&T, Apple unveiled two data plans for its 3G models: the unlimited data plan will cost $29.99, while a 250mb plan will be $14.99 per month.

Although Apple is touting the plans as part of a "breakthrough deal with AT&T", the reality is that for many the monthly data charges will be a burden. Worse, the monthly charges will remind users that they are already paying each month for the device and will be reluctant to add additional charges, like publication subscriptions, to their budgets.

The paywall argument is never ending, so it is not my intention to go over that ground again. But for those who believe that consumers will embrace, or at least not resist, monthly fees to consume media, remember that iPad users that sign up for data plans are already getting dinged and will be reluctant to make matters worse.

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Are you willing to pay $30 a month or more to be
able to read the Times at your local Starbucks? ☞

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For iPhone users the AT&T data plans are a rip-off. AT&T has been promising tethering capability for the iPhone for a while and has not delivered. And since tethering itself is not free, the parade of fees is getting ridiculous. I see two possible ways out of this: one, users simply opt for the WiFi-only model and avoid the whole 3G debacle; two, pressure from competitors may change the environment as companies choose to include free 3G within the sales price of their own tablets at introduction.

2010 is the year these kinds of things get worked out as publishers experiment with paywalls, Apple and AT&T experiment with data plans, and consumers decide when all this nickel and dime-ing becomes just too much to deal with.

First look at Pew's PEJ State of the News Media report

It's a Monday morning and I am just getting around to reading the just released Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journal annual report: The State of the News Media.  The information is, of course, extensive, though I believe the look at magazines to be a bit superficial; and the lack of information about trade publishing means the report misses many developments that have meaning for all of media. (I suspect, however, that some may be having difficulty using the word journalism in a conversation involving trade publishing.)

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☜  Revenue chart from Pew's State of the News Media annual report.

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Although the chart here may be pretty much all bad news, the report does discuss the growth of what it is labeling community journalism. “The new landscape is… more diverse and information-rich than ever before. Digital tools make it easier and easier to stitch together the information niches,” Michele McLellan, a 2009-2010 fellow studying online community news at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, is quoted in the report.

The report looks at some new news sources and discusses their contributions. The report concludes: "This area of journalism is still in its infancy and, as those involved in citizen journalism explain, the landscape continues to broaden. Financially, they face some of the same burden as legacy media do today, but in some cases without established overhead costs. Of course, they face daunting challenges in developing newsroom capabilities, obtaining financial support and understanding changing news preferences."

Again, the entire report can be found here.  For the habitually depressed, I recommend Gawker's take on the report: There Is Literally No Way to Make Money Selling News.