I’m at the spring meeting of American Business Media, the major trade group for media organizations whose journalism is aimed at business audiences, notably the business-to-business crowd. The companies include giants like McGraw Hill, technology maven IDG and many others. This is an executive crowd, by and large, not the editorial folks.
At today’s lunch, I’ll be interviewed by David Klein, publishing and editorial director of the Ad Age Group, which publishes (among other titles) the industry standard Advertising Age weekly. (I’m being compensated for this appearance.) The topic will be, naturally, the advent of citizen media and how it is affecting these folks’ businesses.
This morning’s breakfast, which included a panel discussion, was notable for the fear and loathing of blogging that emerged from at least several audience members and two editors on the panel itself. There was a not-entirely-fascetious remark on how great it would be to block audiences from reading blogs. Oh, please…
But McGraw Hill’s chairman and CEO, Terry McGraw, is making major headway for my case in his keynote talk. He notes that the digital world offers a staggering array of choices for audiences, and an opportunity for trusted brands. Today, he says, we have a “new central function as intelligent moderators,” guides for readers and users.
This is clued-in stuff.
Later: Yahoo’s Scott Moore is showing off his company’s new Tech site. This must be scaring the daylights out of some of the people here. If not, it should. What he’s doing is Yahoo’s latest shot across the bow to traditional media organizations, and not just CNET.