• by John Gaffney , July 29, 2002

Tough To Be In Business: Business magazines, that is. As the post-bubble, post-shakeout world settles for business magazines, I think planners and buyers need to take a fresh look at the players. Seems to me that the general business magazines have skated through the past five years with a minimum of cosmetic change. Fortune, Forbes, Money and Business Week still aim at the same audiences, and still put out excellent editorial products. They did not provide relief to those who got shellacked in the market, and their not taking any irrational exuberance out of the current rally. Business 2.0 and Fast Company are the two wild cards. They have introduced and are trying to maintain business lifestyle and cutting edge mindset as an editorial reason to live. AOL/TimeWarner has been forced to defend Business 2, and is running a trade campaign to support it. G&J will launch a redesigned FC in September. I think this segment of the market is where the action is. Like any category, business books have to differentiate their products in order to maintain an audience. The lifestyle/mindset books have done a good job of that. I do not think its time to write that off because times are tough. Business – for most people I know – is not something left at the office anymore, even if business ain’t so good. I heard a guy at the coffee shop yesterday say: “You know, we talk about work a lot more than we talk about the Yankees these days.”

Tougher To Be In Tech: Word has it that Ziff-Davis will present a bankruptcy plan by the end of the week. New president Bob Callahan has played a tough hand of cards extremely well there. However, I think ZD will need to go beyond the tech category to gain solid footing. A travel magazine co-venture with Expedia flopped in the wake of Sept. 11. However, I think that’s the right direction. ZD has the infrastructure –online and offline – to be a solid publishing house.

Tougher Still To Be In Baseball: As long as I’m running my mouth about fixing the world of print publications, here’s what I’d do with Sports Weekly, You know, it’s the Gannett broadsheet that used to be called Baseball Weekly, but now it has been changed to cover football, too. Keep the title. But aim the circulation at the fantasy league player. I’ve never seen a good estimate of the audience for fantasy leagues, in which guys pick teams among themselves and act like they’re really managing them, but it’s in the millions. And they’re totally fanatic. So I’d give you the most comprehensive and miniscule stats a fantasy geek could ever dream of. And I’d build community through my website. But of course, I’m just running a fantasy executive suite, so take it for what it’s worth.