Big Publishing Company Flip Flops
December 5, 2011
I expect a comment to this post telling me, “Big publishing companies don’t wear flip flops.” Okay, I am using a metaphor. This flip flop is a change of business direction. Just like Thomson Reuters fourth or fifth management shake up in 30 months. That type of flip flop. The flipper and flopper is the Guardian, publisher of a popular newspaper.
The company is selling off one digital property. From the ashes, phoenix like news digital properties will arise, absent the url and Google’s “time” value for PageRanbk. All Things D reports, “Three Years Later, the Guardian Wants a Buyer for PaidContent.” It seems New York-based PaidContent and parent company ContentNext Media are for sale by the Guardian Media Group just three years after it bought them. We learned from the write up:
The move, which the company has contemplated for the last year or so, comes as the British newspaper publisher is going through a cost-cutting round while simultaneously gearing up for an attempt to create a U.S. foothold, via a New York-based Web operation.
I’m curious to see what that “New York-based Web operation” will look like. Wasn’t paidContent a “foothold?”
Writer Peter Kafka notes that, though PaidContent is ContentNext’s flagship, the company also runs three other sites:mocoNews features articles on mobile content; contentSutra focuses on digital news in India; and PaidContent:UK, naturally, covers digital media in the UK. We are willing to learn about new angles on monetizing digital media. The Guardian’s flipping and flopping will be instructive to monitor. For added fun, we may don colorful rubber flip flops so we capture the full impact of the phrase.
Cynthia Murrell, December 5, 2011
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