New Publishing/Old Publishing

So i wrote a few of these posts last year, basically to highlight how in niche areas (in most cases advertising/media/marketing related) non-traditional/non-professional content was not just more nimble and dynamic than traditional publishers, but also read by more people.

Last week's announcement that Media Week would no longer publish in print and Revolution would stop altogether reminded me of these. Partly because I'd used them as 'old publishing' examples at some point in the past, but mainly because I read them. The 'old publishing/new publishing' was not entirely fair because it tended to take a US blog like Logic & Emotion or Web Strategy and compare it to a UK magazine with a much lower potential readership (let's pretend that publishing can still be country-specific for a minute: bear with me on this....).

So how about a fairer comparison. UK marketing blogs (or at least those that conveniently display their FeedBurner stats on the site) and UK marketing magazines.

Media Week - 9,824 (Audit Bureau of Circulation 2008-09)
Revolution - 10,002 (Audit Bureau of Circulation 2008-09)

PR Blogger - 4,514 (FeedBurner)
Only Dead Fish - 2,024 (FeedBurner)

So not individually. But on the other hand, the cost of blogging is one of time and commitment, not of industrial production, so there are hundreds of other interesting opinionated and generally awesome blogs covering the same subject without as many readers. On the other hand I'll miss Revolution because it was a great mag. As Clay Shirky has been saying all year,

"you'll miss us when we're gone" isn't a viable business model

However neither it seems is B2B magazine publishing in some sectors. Does't mean that we won't miss them though