New York Times & Wall St. Journal Validate Predictions about Facial Recognition, Robots, Retailapacolpyse and More

Some trends move more quickly than others.

We predicted that privacy would be a big issue this year — this, after years when people said Millennials aren’t concerned about privacy. We’re seeing a lot of articles that raise concerns about privacy. We also said that facial recognition would get a lot of attention this year.

The New York Times recently wrote “Facial Recognition Moves Into a New Front: Schools,” noting that, “A district in New York has adopted the technology in the name of safety. Opponents cite privacy and bias concerns.”

Part of the reason for putting facial recognition in schools is a topic we didn’t identify: the need to improve safety to prevent mass shootings in places that didn’t have or need much security before, including schools, churches and temples. (We do expect to see a lot more coverage about protecting these kinds of locations this year, as these organizations, often nonprofits or otherwise under financed, have to figure out a way to protect the people who visit those locations without keeping away people who need their services.) 

In addition to reporting on facial recognition, the Times also wrote about robots, which we said, “Robots won’t take over in 2020 but will be more commonplace. ” The Times recently published an article, “The Robots Are Coming. Prepare for Trouble,” noting that “Artificial intelligence won’t eliminate every retail job, an economist says, but the future could be grim unless we start planning now.” First, it says that “robots are coming,” not that they are fully here yet, which aligns with our prediction. 

The article also looks at AI and how it’s used in retail — which correlates with another of our predictions! The article notes that the impact of robots and AI in retail has led to more than 6,000 store closings in 2018. Interestingly, the growth of e-commerce is strong, growing at nearly doubled but over the past five years, it went from 6% to 11%.
 (You’d think from all the claims of Amazonification or the coming of the Retailapacalypse, that the percentage of e-commerce as a share of the overall retail market would be substantially higher.) Just wait, we guess.

But the article also mentions how AI is being used to “figure out what customers want and to get it to them quickly,” which is another point we made. 

Meanwhile, more bad news the retail sector. Bloomingdale’s is shutting down its fur boutiques — but that seems like being the victim of fashion trends. But Macy’s is shutting down 125 stores over the next three years and approximately 2000 corporate jobs. The impact is that Macy’s has “served as a backbone for America’s shopping malls.”

This is our final validation for this blog: we had said that food delivery apps are going to face challenges this year, due to completion from other apps and from restaurateurs realizing that they’re not making enough money, maybe even losing money, and that this is not sustainable. Here’s the latest on this from the Journal: “Grubhub Spends to Draw In More Diners: Tight competition is pushing food-delivery rivals to experiment, adapt to industry in flux.” The costs for consumers will have to increase in order to make it sustainable for apps — DoorDash, GrubHubs, Uber Eats, and Postmates — as well as for the restaurants themselves.

Grubhub said it will sacrifice profits to compete — the challenge is how long they can operate before generating a profit. With an expected $100 million in profits for this fiscal year, we guess they have some runway to reach sustainability. 

We're living in an interesting time: there is a trend for people to spend more time cooking for themselves, with organic ingredients, even with food selection and recipes delivered to your door for you to cook at home. At the same time, we're seeing a strong appetite (pun intended) for food delivery services for people who don't want to prep, cook and clean. We guess that means you can have it your way. 

Which is our way of saying: consumers will have more choices for how to approach meals, and they seem willing to pay a premium for convenience. How much of a premium has yet to be answered.

Understanding Editorial Boards

There's some confusion about what Editorial Boards at newspapers do, and the New York Times recently produced a section to discuss its role at the paper.

This blog will provide an overview about Editorial Boards to capture some of the information presented by James Bennet, editorial page editor of the Times who oversees the editorial board as well as the Letters and the Op-Ed sections. 

Together the editorial board, op-ed and letters section is part of Times Opinion, whose purpose, Bennet says, 

"Is to supply the wide-ranging debate about big ideas that a diverse democracy needs. Amid that debate, the role of the editorial board is to provide Times readers with a long-range view formed not by one person’s expertise and experience but ballasted by certain institutional values that have evolved across more than 150 years. That’s why the editorials, unlike other articles in The Times, appear without a byline."

The Times editorial board operates as the voice of the paper and the publisher, writing editorials independent from the newsroom. That means the editorial board does not speak for the newsroom or that newsroom staff feel the same way about a particular issue. In fact, there have been stories about newsroom staffs at various papers, including the Times and the Wall St. Journal, being upset about positions taken by their respective editorial boards.

For decades, editorial boards have been influential, offering endorsements for political office and highlighting issues important to the communities they serve. The influence of editorial boards has declined over the last several decades but are still important, in part because they take "a long-range view formed not by one person’s expertise and experience but ballasted by certain institutional values." But as CNN recently noted, "The power of newspaper endorsement -- ANY newspaper -- is increasingly limited in terms of its ability to sway voters. That's especially true of national newspapers like the Times." 

How the Times' Editorial Board works

1. "The New York Times editorial board is made up of opinion journalists who rely on research, debate and individual expertise to reach a shared view of important issues," according to the Times' description. 
2. The board is comprised of 15 veteran journalists who bring "years of research, subject-matter expertise and personal experience," including foreign correspondents and beat reporters. They include:
1.  James Bennet, who has recused himself from involvement in the 2020 election because his brother, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, is running for president.
2.  Kathleen Kingsbury, deputy editorial page editor.
3. Binyamin Appelbaum: economics & business.
4. Michelle Cottle: U.S. politics.
5. Mara Gay: N.Y. state and local affairs.
6. Jennen Interlandi: health & science.
7. Laureen Kelley: women & reproductive rights.
8. Alex Kingsbury: tehcnology & national affairs.
9. Serge Schmemann: international affairs.
10. Bremt Staples: education, criminal justice & economics.
11. Jesse Wegman: Supreme Court & legal affairs.
12. John Broder: associate editor.
13. Nick Fox: editor.
14. Carol Giacomo: foreign affairs.
15. Charlie Warzel: technology. Warzel is not a permanent member of the editorial board but has been writing a series of opinion articles about privacy for the editorial board. He writes about the intersection of technology, media, and politics as well as online extremism.
16. James Dao: op-ed editor. He is part of the Times Opinion section and is participating in the Times' process to endorse presidential candidates but is not a permanent member of the board.
3. The board meets at least twice each week.
4. The board discusses significant questions in the news, informed by the members who are subject-matter experts in the topic as well as by an understanding of the positions the board has taken over the years. That's not to say the Times' editorial board doesn't break with presidence: "We try to keep in mind the big questions we’ve gotten wrong in the past — such as opposing women’s suffrage — to cultivate some humility and caution," Bennet notes.
5. "In general," Bennet writes, the board "reaches its conclusions by consensus, though in matters where there is deep disagreement we sometimes have to call a vote."
6. The board interviews all major presidential candidates to get their perspective before the board makes an endorsement.

Why You Should Care about the Editorial Board

The editorial board does more than endorse a candidate. The board will meet with outside experts who can provide insight on a topic relevant and significant to the Times community. Requesting a meeting can be a way to get your organization's perspective in front of the editorial board, with the hope -- there's no guarantee, of course -- that the next time the board writes about that issue, it may provide perspective it got from that meeting.

Please note: getting a meeting can be a real challenge. Each editorial board has a different process of handling meeting requests. Please note: You're not likely going to be able to meet with the entire board. You should focus on contacting the subject-matter board member covering your issue. 

One of the challenges is that it can be difficult to get to the right person at the paper to schedule a meeting. The above list of subject-matter journalists at the New York Times, is valid as of Jan. 2020 but the actual URL indicates the list is from 2018. It may not be accurate even by the end of 2020. Most papers do not list the editorial board members or may not have updated their membership page in a long time; for example, the Wall St. Journal lists "Who We Are" of the editorial board but that was last updated Jan. 1, 2000 -- 20 years ago, and while a number of people remain, many have moved on. Some editorial board members list their affiliation when they publish columns away from the editorial board, which does happen at the Wall St. Journal. By the way, the Journal does provide a more updated list of its editorial board but it does not necessarily list their subject matter expertise. 

Even if you have scheduled an editorial board meeting with the right person -- as we have done in the past -- you are not guaranteed that they will respond or include your organization's perspective the next time they opine on the topic. 

We have fond that the process of developing a compelling reason to meet with the editorial board can help when writing an op-ed article on the topic. Even if you can't meet with the board or with the appropriate board member, the exercise of framing your perspective can have a longer-term benefit by refining your thoughts and key messages.

Let us know if you have any questions about working with editorial boards.

NYT Offers Advice to Combat the "Age of Anxiety" by Changing How You Interact with Social Media

We've long felt that social media is one of the contributing reasons that many Americans are feeling anxious. That's part of why we think we're living in the "Age of Anxiety."

As part of our predictions for 2020, we said we expected the media to cover this, and the New York Times recently provided some tips as part of its "Smarter Living" initiative, entitled, "How to Turn Depressing Social Media Into a Positive Influence."

According to the Times, "The current state of the modern world is a billion voices screaming for your attention, and it’s easy to let the most negative ones filter through and bring you down. It can be exhausting, and if your real life is already a struggle, adding digital gloom can be overwhelming."

The article, whose subhead says, "Don’t let Facebook, Instagram or Twitter become negative aspects of your life. Here’s how to fix them," provides tips on for those three social media platform such as:

1. Be selective who you follow. "Don’t follow accounts or hashtags you don’t like."
2. Go back and unfollow friends "who only post negative things...or (those) who only writes rude comments."
3. Don't click on things you don't like. The reason: Instagram knows what you look at so it will continue to serve up photos similar to the others you've tapped. "Click on something else. It won't take long to adjust and show you that."
4. Skip Insta's Search page. Instead, "only look at the accounts you follow."
5. Consider muting or blocking on Twitter to avoid "the most terribly toxic tweeters."
6. "Enable the Quality filter and other advanced filters to cut down on replies from accounts with only a few followers (i.e., likely spam or bots)."
7. "Don't post anything you don't want." People sometimes feel compelled to post but you don't have to.

Those are good tips, and there are more in the article so it's worth checking out.

We have another tip: When posting photos or info that includes other people, ask them in advance if they're okay doing so. We know a frequent poster who uploaded group photos that included friends' young kids. The parents and the kids were unhappy to be included; they just didn't want to be included. 

We do expect people to take social media vacations -- that is: to take time off from checking social media -- this year, especially as the presidential election approaches. But the need to take a social media vacation isn't due only to wanting to avoid politics (your own or someone from across the aisle). We feel that the need to take time away from social media can be beneficial and help you be present in a way that constant checking can't do.

Wired Validates Predictions about Privacy & AI Built Into Everything

Two of our predictions for 2020, which we've called the "Age of Anxiety," is the feeling that we're constantly under surveillance. We also said that a media topic would be "AI in everything."

With the latest column for Wired, "Worried About Privacy at Home? There's an AI for That How edge AI will provide devices with just enough smarts to get the job done without spilling all your secrets to the mothership,"  by Clive Thompson, a very smart columnist who also writes for the New York Times, touched on both parts: the privacy and the AI in everything.

His feeling: "I don't need light switches that tell dad jokes. When it comes to gadgets that share my house, I'd prefer they be less smart."

What he means is there are companies building "edge AI": AI that runs on "teensy microprocessors" that have enough capability to control a coffee maker but nothing more than that; perhaps an edge AI can understand 200 words. 

Why is that enough? With designed limited capability, the edge AI-enabled coffee machine does not need to interact with the cloud, which would give it more power but also share all kinds of data in the cloud, where it can be used to better train future iterations of the coffee machine (perhaps) and also could be monetized or further shared without your permission.

Designed to handle specific applications, edge AI can be faster and can ensure privacy while helping you get the job done. As Thompson notes:

"You can't banter with it (edge AI) as you would with Alex. But who cares? 'It's a coffee maker. You're not going to have a meaningful conversation with your coffee maker...'"

Thompson describes edge AI as perfect for appliances light lamps, TVs, and other devices that could benefit from voice control without needing full-on conversational capabilities. True, users would need to know the key terms to turn on and off devices or handle other variables (like turn up or down the lights and thermostats or the channels or volume, if that's how you still watch TV or listen to music). But they won't have to worry that someone is listening in on the conversations.

Edge AI won't solve all the "Age of Anxiety" issues but it's a good way to use just-smart-enough AI to help us without being too smart and not knowing how our input and data are being used.

New York Times' Farhad Manjoo Validates Our Prediction About Screen Addiction

In his Jan. 18, 2018 column in The New York Times, "It’s Time for Apple to Build a Less Addictive iPhone: Apple gave us the modern smartphone. Now, it can create a new take on the device by encouraging us to use it more deliberately — and a lot less" by blog-fav Farhad Manjoo validated our prediction about screen addiction issued in Dec. 14, 2017.

A month ago, we said:

The ‘60s may have been the Age of Aquarius but this decade seems to be the Age of Anxiety and Anger. One cause: screen addiction. Constantly clicking our smartphones for the latest news – and it seems that there’s continually breaking news – may help us feel we’re on top of the situation but it leaves most of us feeling more empty, worried and angry than before – despite political preferences. We anticipate more coverage on stress, anxiety, mental health and ways to de-stress, which includes taking a break from your device – aka a technology cleanse or digital detox – which is healthy and a good idea but may seem impossible to do.

In his article, Manjoo observed:

Tech “addiction” is a topic of rising national concern. I put the A-word in quotes because the precise pull that our phones exert over us isn’t the same as that of drugs or alcohol. The issue isn’t really new, either; researchers who study how we use digital technology have for years been warning of its potential negative effects on our cognition, psyche and well-being. 

What is new is who has joined the ranks of the worried. Recently, a parade of tech luminaries, including several former Facebook employees, have argued that we’re no match for the sophisticated machinery of engagement and persuasion being built into smartphone apps. Their fears are manifold: They’re worried about distraction, productivity, how social networks alter our emotional lives and relationships, and what they’re doing to children.

 By the way, when we write that our predictions have been validated, it's only partly for self-congratulations. Mostly, we see this an opportunity to continue the discussion on a topic that already interested us, and to move the story forward.

In this case, Manjoo takes a deeper look at the issue, pointing out the problem is: 

Like air pollution or intrusive online advertising, tech addiction is a collective-action problem caused by misaligned incentives. Companies that make money from your attention — that is, ad-supported apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube — now employ armies of people who work with supercomputers to hook you ever more deeply into their services. Sure, we should call on them to act more ethically — and Facebook, for its part, has said it’s willing to lose money to improve its users’ well-being — but I’m skeptical they’ll be able to suppress their economic interests.

That's an important point: a solution may reside within the companies that are not only causing the problem, they also make money because we are hooked on their products. So solving our addiction will cost them money.

Which means: fixing this will be hard to sell to a board of directors and shareholders.

I do like two of Manjoo's suggested fixes:

1. Imagine if, once a week, your phone gave you a report on how you spent your time, similar to how your activity tracker tells you how sedentary you were last week. It could also needle you: “Farhad, you spent half your week scrolling through Twitter. Do you really feel proud of that?” It could offer to help: “If I notice you spending too much time on Snapchat next week, would you like me to remind you?”
2. Another idea is to let you impose more fine-grained controls over notifications. Today, when you let an app send you mobile alerts, it’s usually an all-or-nothing proposition — you say yes to letting it buzz you, and suddenly it’s buzzing you all the time.

The notifications (as we observed in our predictions) are a real part of the problem. Your phone lights up, and your turn to see what it was. Combined with the increasingly fast news cycle (another one of our predictions for 2018), we expect screen addition to get worse this year.

Like us, Manjoo feels that government regulation is unlikely to solve the problem (another of our predictions). He urges Apple, which has a different business model from Facebook and the other advertising-supported social media platforms, to take design steps to reduce our addiction -- since doing so won't hurt Apple's business model.

We agree with Manjoo and hope that Apple will build those common-sense suggestions to reduce our collective addiction to our devices.

Of course, while we think everyone would benefit by being less addicted to their devices, that doesn't mean we want you to stop visiting our blog. Let us know if you disagree with the screen addiction concept or if you have suggestions that could reduce our own screen addiction until Apple and others unveil a less-sticky design.

Wall St. Journal & New York Times Validate Our Prediction About Screen Addiction

In one of our predictions for 2018, published Dec. 14, 2017, we made what we thought to be a longshot prediction: That this year, people would recognize screen addiction as a real issue. Here's what we said:

The ‘60s may have been the Age of Aquarius but this decade seems to be the Age of Anxiety and Anger. One cause: screen addiction. Constantly clicking our smartphones for the latest news – and it seems that there’s continually breaking news – may help us feel we’re on top of the situation but it leaves most of us feeling more empty, worried and angry than before – despite political preferences. We anticipate more coverage on stress, anxiety, mental health and ways to de-stress, which includes taking a break from your device – aka a technology cleanse or digital detox – which is healthy and a good idea but may seem impossible to do.

The reason we thought it was a longshot is that over the past couple of years, there has been the occasional article about digital overload but it hadn't coalesced into something more than a blip. But last year, we felt that could easily change in 2018.

And it has.

Check out:

1. The Wall St. Journal's "Debate over iPhone use by young people reflects the misgivings some in the industry feel toward smartphones' ubiquity: Silicon Valley Reconsiders the iPhone Era It Created"; and
2. The New York Times': "Tech Backlash Grows as Investors Press Apple to Act on Children’s Use: Apple should give parents more tools to curb technology use by children and study the health effects of excessive screen time, two big funds said"; and
3. The New York Times: "It’s Time for Apple to Build a Less Addictive iPhone: Apple gave us the modern smartphone. Now, it can create a new take on the device by encouraging us to use it more deliberately — and a lot less" by Farhad Manjoo.
   

According to the Journal, "a letter to Apple on Saturday from Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, which control about $2 billion of Apple shares....urged the tech giant to develop new software tools that would help parents control and limit phone use more easily, and to study the impact of overuse on mental health." And also, the Journal reported, "On Monday, Tony Fadell, a former senior Apple hardware executive involved in the iPhone’s creation, also called on Apple to do more, saying on Twitter that adults are struggling just as much as children with smartphone overuse."

Last year, Fadell apparently began voicing concern, but the media didn't start paying real attention to it until this year.

In it's article, the Times quoted the same letter, describing "a backlash against big tech has been growing for months." Which is another trend we predicted in which we said, "There will be a debate about whether or not and how to regulate Facebook, Google, and Twitter." We did not use the term "backlash," though we should have, and we did not mention Apple specifically but later in that paragraph, we do say that one of the underlying questions would be "Has big tech gotten too powerful." And we think that increasingly, the answer is: "Yes" (and that's part of the backlash).

In fact, check out this front-page (remember that the front-page used to be an indicator of importance) article from the WSJ: "The Antitrust Case Against Facebook, Google and Amazon: Facebook, Google and Amazon dominate their worlds just as Standard Oil and AT&T once did. Critics say they should get the same treatment. The answer to the antitrust question depends on a narrow test: Are consumers worse off?"

For us, screen addiction and big tech backlash and big tech's power are important societal issues. We doubt much will happen to address either the screen addiction or big tech's power (and we think the anxiety and addition they cause does amount to consumer harm) but it is significant that these issues are being raised.

New York Times Validates Our Prediction on the Gig Economy

We posted our list of annual trends starting yesterday afternoon, with this blog article hitting this morning -- and on our first day we scored a hit.

In today's New York Times, former labor and workplace reporter Steven Greenhouse wrote an op-ed entitled, "The 'What Is It' Economy" (in the print edition) and "The Whatchamacallit Economy" (in the online version) that sets to more accurately define the gig economy and sharing economy -- which can be two sides of the same coin.

Airbnb is part of the sharing economy but those who rent out their homes actually have a new gig of cleaning up and preparing their homes for Airbnbers. Uber is also considered part of the sharing economy but Uber drivers are definitely part of the gig economy.

In our trends, we said we need to better define gig and sharing to understand the impact they're having on our overall economy.

Some are calling it the "Exploitation Economy," and that might be a fair assessment.

But as the media and Americans in general look to Trump to bring back good jobs, the nature of what work is like in the 21st century will have to be part of that discussion. There are a lot of people who prefer to live in the gig economy, and benefit from doing so. There are also a lot of people who are in the gig economy and don't want to be.

We need a better understanding of this to help those who want full-time jobs and protect those who prefer gigs.

You can check out our prediction here.

Fortune, WSJ & NYTimes Validate Another of Our Predictions -- This Time About Unicorns

In December, we asked (somewhat pretentiously), "Whither unicorns and their business models?" 

We said, "Unicorns – startups valued at upwards of $1 billion – were big in 2015. Expect coverage in 2016 that questions whether the unicorn bubble will burst. This will be true not just of privately held startups but also of publicly held companies (that represent the next stage of unicorn development) that fail to fully monetize their businesses. Twitter and Yahoo! – that means you and other social media platforms that fail to live up to financial expectations."

In Fortune's Feb. 1st issue, an article entitled, "Good Luck Getting Out!," made the case that private investors have put $362 billion into startups over the past five years, pumping up the value of so-called unicorns. Now the broken tech IPO market is cratering. Who will survive the reckoning?"

And on Friday, the Wall St. Journal reported, "For Silicon Valley, the Hangover Begins: With venture-capital investors increasingly nervous, once-hottech startups are retrenching" while the Times' Farhad Manjoo profiled one unicorn that's facing a heap of problems in his article, "Zenefits Scandal Highlights Perils of Hypergrowth at Start-Ups." Both articles are worth reading.

Meanwhile, let's not forget that we called out Twitter and Yahoo!

Twitter shares "hit a nominal low on Thursday a day after it said that user growth had stalled for the first time since the company went public in 2013," The New York Times reported this month. 

And Yahoo!? Well, The New York Times also reported this month that "Yahoo Announces First Round of Layoffs as It Trims 15 Percent of Workforce."

We feel badly for the employees of Twitter and Yahoo! and other unicorns at risk, but we feel pretty good about our trend-calling ability.

New York Times Validates Our Prediction About Driverless Cars (Second Time!)

The New York Times again validated our prediction about driverless cars -- that the issue isn't strictly the technology but the liability.

Check out John Markoff's "Google Car Exposes Regulatory Divide on Computers as Drivers."

This is the second Times article to validate our contention: that "auto insurance will see that premiums will go down as accidents decrease – and that will change one dynamic of driverless cars (perhaps not theft, however)." (You can check out our prediction here: http://bit.ly/1NDfVgf.)

We continue to expect more coverage of this issue.

New York Times Validated Our Predictions on Unicorns

In our annual predictions, we predicted that the business media, which in 2015 had breathlessly reported on unicorns – startups valued at upwards of $1 billion – would start reporting that there's a unicorn bubble. On Jan. 20th, a little more than a month after we posted that prediction, the New York Times' Steven Davidoff Solomon wrote an article, "Expect some unicorns to lose their horns, and it won't be pretty."

In his article, Davidoff Solomon predicted, "The unicorn wars are coming, as the downturn in the market will force these onetime highfliers to seek money at valuations below their earlier billion-dollar-plus levels, known as 'down rounds.'”

He also goes into more detail about the kinds of wars that will occur, including those 

• Who own common stock vs. those who own preferred -- those with preferred make out better.
• Employees vs new money -- in other words between stock options that may now be worthless as new investors push the value down significantly.
• New money vs. old money -- in this case the valuation given the shares that new investors get vs. those earlier investors got. 
• Founders vs. everyone else.

If you're interested in unicorns because they set a tone for the market, Davidoff Solomon's article is worth checking out.

What the Selling of Forbes Tells Us about the State of Business Media (Part I)

According to the New York Times media columnist David Carr, Forbes will be sold to an international company sometime in the next few months. You can read his article, "Foreign Buyers Eying Forbes Magazine, a Chronicler of the World’s Wealthiest." 

But here are some lessons learned, gleaned from the article and our experience:

• Standalone magazine companies are at a disadvantage to conglomerates that can spread costs and profits across a family of magazines, according to Carr. For the most part Carr is right -- but Forbes actually publishes several other titles -- ForbesLife, Forbes Europe, Forbes Asia as well as 29 international editions. (It's probably not a good time to purchase advertising in Forbes Russia, Forbes Ukraine.) Forbes also runs a very popular website (more on that below) and RealClearPolitics.com family of website. Our point is: it's not just publishing a range of publications -- it's publishing magazines that reach a range of readers. After all, if you put all your eggs in one high-value Birken bag, when advertisers pull back on your demographic, you could get hit 29 times.
• Sometimes selling isn't a matter of making money but in preventing additional losses. The estimated price that Forbes may sell is $250 million (though some say that estimate is low). But Elevation Partners paid $264 million for a minority stake -- so their portion is certainly underwater. Carr says the Forbes family is unlikely to make money from the sale. The question becomes: why sell? Seems clear that the reason is that it continues to be tough for media companies to build value.
• The value shoring up Forbes is not its popular website -- but its conference division. The publication is probably generating tons of revenue from its growing number of conferences, including luxury cruises offering insights and access to top stock pickers. Conferences have re-emerged for Forbes and other publishers as a profit generation tool. Conferences may have been a difference in the valuation of BusinessWeek for $5 million (and the assumption of debt) when it was acquired by Bloomberg. The same for Newsweek, which had no conferences and was sold for $1 and the assumption of debt. The bottom line lesson: perhaps leverage a successful conference series and turn that into a multimedia property (which is what TED is doing). 
• Forbes could generate more money by establishing a paywall around its content. Carr makes the point that Carr makes the point that others -- including the Times and Wall St. Journal -- have successfully boosted revenue by establishing paywalls around their content. Yet Forbes.com aggressively promotes the website in a bid to generate views that can translate into higher revenue. It has been very successful in developing a community of columnists (many of them people trying to position themselves as thought leaders). The bottom line here: there's still no single, accepted way to generate sustainable revenue online -- neither free access (and higher revenue from advertisers) or paywalls (and subscription fees from access) are really replacing print advertising revenue that will never return to pre-mobile/digital levels.
• Circulation is holding steady but it may not generate steady revenue. Last year, Forbes was offering print subscriptions for $10 -- that's a steep discount from prior years. Keeping circulation high is important to advertisers (and the amounts you can charge them) but discounting clearly hurts profits.
• Forbes is very creative in finding revenue. It's been a leader in pushing advertorials. It can sometimes feel like a 1/5th of the magazine is devoted to advertorials. But more significantly, Forbes is a pioneer in native advertising (though I don't think that's the term they use) through its BrandVoice section on the website and in the magazine. Here's how Forbes describes it: "Forbes BrandVoice™ is an integrated and by-invitation content-sharing platform ...(that) is an innovative approach to integrating marketers’ content with Forbes’ editorial and users’ content — allowing marketers to demonstrate their thought leadership on the Forbes platform using the same tools as content creators." What does it take to receive an invitation to be a Forbes BrandVoice partner? We've heard estimates of $800,000 in annual advertising just to get to the point of discussing BrandVoice. (In other words, BrandVoice spending is on top of a company's annual advertising buy.)
• Not all ways of charging access are reader friendly. While Forbes doesn't charge to access its website, it does charge to access its content via your iPad. If you're already a subscriber to the print edition, Forbes charges $9.95 for an annual iPad subscription.  When you consider Forbes' $10 print subscriptions price, charging $9.95 to access the iPad version is like a 100% tax increase.

Carr makes the point that it's ironic that a magazine with a strong heritage of America-first is now being sold to an international company. I agree -- but I also think that the sale (likely to an Asian company) makes sense because Forbes is more likely to be seen as a trophy property for companies based in Asia than anywhere else in the world.

What Carr doesn't discuss or speculate is how an international owner will change Forbes. For that, stay tuned! You can check out a subsequent look at the selling of Forbes here. 

NY Times' David Carr Validates Media Still Distabilized Prediction

In our annual set of predictions, we said 

The media businesshas not stabilized... (and) publishers still have not found a sustainable business model.  

That prediction was validated earlier this week by media columnist David Carr in his article: "Print Starts to Settle Into Its Niches." Check it out about a look at Kevin Kelly's return to print book publishing.

Also, the Times validated "The Internet of Things" prediction and the one we made about the challenge of selling TVs when people are watching on devices. Check out "‘Smart TVs’ Are Next Bet for Makers as Sales Languish."

Why Pogue, Mossberg & Swisher Are Leaving the NYT & WSJ, Part II

With the imminent shift by David Pogue (The New York Times), Walt Mossberg (Wall St. Journal/AllThingsD) and Kara Swisher (AllThingsD) to new ventures, I had some additional thoughts about the significance of those moves.

Mike Maney, who tweets at the_spinmd, responded to my first blog post  on the topic, saying, "Not sure I'd say lots of people still open their paper to read. Which is the core of the 'why' IMO" that Pogue, Mossberg and Swisher are leaving.

I agree but I think people do check out the Times and the Journal on their apps and from those papers' websites. Soon, after checking the headlines on nytimes.com and wsj.com, people are going to have to remember to click to the other URLs to find out what Pogue and Mossberg think about the latest cosnumerish technology.

Of course a click or two, especially if bookmarked, is not an arduous, time-consumer process (not like it was with dial-up service -- for those old enough to remember dial-up). But we leave in a one-click world where requiring a couple of clicks to purchase an item may cause people to give up.  (I can't imagine what my grandmother would react if she she had learned that a couple of clicks represent too much of an obstacle to purchase, considering she had to take buses to get to the store to buy something only after trying it on, and then travel back again when she returned the item.)

I do think Pogue, Mossberg and Swisher are replaceable in a way -- I mean, we all are, after all. But I do think it will be more difficult for their replacements to establish themselves just as it will take a while for Pogue, Mossberg and Swisher (I'm not going to refer to them by an acronym).

As it is, one can make a case that the tech reporters getting a lot of attention these days are not the tech reviewers but those who cover startups. That said, consumer tech reviewers will always be important because we need someone to tell us which device is better -- the iPhone or the Galaxy.

No matter what, I think the continuing fragmentation of the media is a lose-lose proposition for reporters, these publications and the readers. 

This fragmentation makes it more challenging to reach a mass audience. It takes more effort to reach more reporters, who themselves reach smaller audiences. (These audiences may be more engaged than traditional print newspaper readers, but they're still harder to reach.) It takes more time to research and contact reporters...which means we need to spend more time overall to reach fewer people at a time. It's pretty much a similar story with social media, too. Don't get me wrong, you've got to reach people on different platforms -- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, blogs, and forums, etc. -- but it can take more time to reach increasingly niche audiences.

That, I believe, is the point to keep in mind in terms of the implications for Pogue, Mossberg, Swisher and the rest of us.

Why are Pogue, Mossberg & Swisher Leaving the NYT & WSJ?

Following the recent news that Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at AllThingsD will be leaving after 11 years to start a new technology writing and conference business, David Pogue announced that he's leaving the New York Times after 13 years. Pogue will be joining a new consumer technology site at Yahoo.

There are some reports/rumors that Mossberg and Swisher were pushed out of the Wall St. Journal, which has also announced it will expand "the Journal's technology coverage and conference franchise, including the addition of 20 editorial staff. (By the way, Mossberg has worked at the Journal for far longer than 11 years -- the 11 years is based on the launch of AllThingsD.) Mossberg and Swisher's contract runs through Dec. 31, 2013, and they have said that they will launch a new business as of Jan. 1, 2014.

What's interesting is this: regardless of whether Mossberg and Swisher were pushed out, they will launch a new platform. (Hard to imagine that they'll be able to launch a competing business while still writing for the Journal but I have every confidence that they will be successful). And regardless to how Pogue is leaving (there have been grumblings regarding conflicts of interest in terms of reviewing Apple technology when he also has had publishing contracts for how-to books on those same products), these departures raise a couple of interesting questions:

• All three are hardworking, knowledgeable and have incredible industry connections -- but how much of their success has been the result of the platform they've had for the last decade? In other words, were they the top of the industry because they worked at the New York Times and Wall St. Journal or were they working at the NYT and WSJ because they are the best reporters out there? (Again, I've worked with them over the years, and have always read their columns and articles -- and they are terrific reporters and reviewers.)
• How important are they to their respective tech sections? Based on my experience, lots of people open their Thursday editions to read the latest reviews from Mossberg and Pogue. So, will readers still turn to the Thursday tech sections as avidly as they did until now? I'm betting that there will be a fall-off because I think readers respect Mossberg and Pogue and because they've built up credibility over the past decade-plus.
• Will their new endeavors keep them at the pinnacle of the industry? I think Mossberg and Swisher definitely will maintain their ranks -- because of the conference business. Pogue has hinted at more than blog posts, reviews and video -- but launching a successful conference is tough. Mossberg and Swisher have done it and should be able to do so again. The question is whether Pogue, who is also busy serving as technology correspondent for “CBS News Sunday Morning,” columnist for Scientific American and the host of a series on technology on the PBS program “Nova,” has the time and inclination to build a conference business. That said, by keeping his position with CBS News Sunday Morning, Pogue will also maintain his position at the top of the field.
• That said, while I know online is usurping print, I still wonder if their new online platforms Yahoo for Pogue and To-Be-Named-Later for Mossberg and Swisher, will attract as much attention/traffic as the NYTimes.com or WSJ.com?
• For Mossberg and Swisher, will their new site provide subscriber-only access -- a paywall to generate revenue even before generating advertising revenue? With Pogue, the established Yahoo! platform indicates his new site would be free -- but still leaves open the question: how does it become self-sustaining?. 

However this plays out, it's clear that reporters these days can find new ways to monetize their reviews and articles beyond print newspapers. But the further fragmentation of the media makes developing an audience that much more challenging for Mossberg, Swisher and Pogue -- and that much more challenging for those of us who follow and pitch them.

Let me know what you think.

NYT & WSJ Validate Our Cyberattack Prediction

For the last two years, we've predicted that cybercrime, cyberattacks and cyberwarfare would be top ongoing stories.

We'd rather not be right about this. And we don't want clients to be involved -- just prepared that this is a topic that the media will cover.

Nonetheless, here are two recent New York Times and Wall St. Journal headlines that validate our predictions:

• Wall St. Journal: U.S. Official Cites Cyberattack Risks
• New York Times:  Security Leader Says U.S. Would Retaliate Against Cyberattacks

As background, in our predictions for 2013's"Ongoing stories we’ll see covered in the media," we wrote:

Cybercrime and cyberwarfare: We said this was a growing issue in 2012, and we maintain that's the case for the rest of the decade. There will be a lot of articles about China as a source for cyberespionage and policy articles about how the U.S. should protect itself from its largest creditor. Expect regular front-page coverage about the latest exploits against the U.S. and U.S. companies. A big concern: our security and intelligence agencies don't have enough trained personnel to protect against and prevent cyber attacks against the U.S. and American businesses; and they lack the resources to fully identify and prosecute cybercriminals. We also expect to see a rise in the number of stories about cyberstalking and “revenge porn,” where jilted exes post incriminating (and often false) information as a way to get back at former spouses, lovers, and friends.

If Social Media Can Work for George Takei, Could It Work for B2Bs?

The New York Times wrote an interesting article about former A-list and B-list celebs who are using social media to recapture relevancy. Check out the article: Tasting Fame Again, Tweet by Tweet, which profiles George Takei's success on Twitter and efforts by Jennifer Grey, Sally Jessy Raphael.

Key points include:

• Without social-networking platforms such as these, “I think I’d be in, ‘Is she still alive?’ heaven,” Ms. Raphael told the Times.
• No longer must celebrities of yore resort to appearing on campy reality shows to remind the public they exist.
•  “When you look at these faded personalities, imagine what the pitch would be if you were a publicist trying to get press on one of these people,” said Janice Min, editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter. “You absolutely could not.”

For a lot of B2B companies, it can be difficult to generate coverage in major market newspapers. We think social media can work to make B2B companies relevant, and that smart B2Bs are using social media as a  key aspect of their thought leadership programs.

Fortune Validates

Back in Feb., we issued the prediction that focus on mobile payments would increase.

Last month, Fortune joined the New York Times and Wall St. Journal and other top-tier media in validating our prediction. Check out the cover story: "The Death of Cash: Tech giants - and startups like Square - want you to use your phone to pay for everything from gum to train rides. Here's how they plan to achieve cash-free nirvana."

We predicted that e-wallets would be mainstream in five years but we may move that up to four years, based on the kind of media coverage we've been seeing.

New York Times Validates Cashless Wallet Prediction

Back in Feb., we issued the prediction that focus on mobile payments would increase, saying:

Spearheaded by Google Wallet, Visa's V.me, and Verizon, 2012 looks to be a big year for mobile commerce. Using your smartphone to make purchases will not attract most Americans this year, but a growing part of the population will love the convenience of not having to find an ATM or not paying fees to use another bank system’s ATM. You can delay the day our society becomes a cashless one, but eventually going cash free will be mainstream by the end of the decade.

Last month, the Wall St. Journal article validated our prediction in an article entitled, "Retailers Join Payment Chase; Two Words: Digital Wallet—Wal-Mart and Target Join Project Aiming to Make Plastic." The big issues for adoption by retailers are potential security and privacy issues.

Yesterday, the New York Times validated our prediction, too, in an article entitled, "Many Competing Paths on the Road to the Phone Wallet." According to the Times, "The idea of using a smartphone as a wallet has been slow to catch on in the United States," and that "a big part of the problem has been that most stores do not have the proper physical equipment to allow customers to pay by tapping their phone."

That will change, the Times noted, due to "heavy pressure to upgrade their payment terminals to accept smart cards. Over the past few months, Visa, Discover and MasterCard have said that merchants that cannot accept these cards will be liable for any losses owing to fraud."

Check out the rest of the article for more details. But what that means is that the adoption trend for mobile payments will increase significantly.  Some analysts and industry players believe that mobile payments -- powered by near-field communications (a technology standard to connect devices like smartphones by bringing them into close proximity with other devices) -- will be mainstream in five years.

That's five years ahead of our prediction, but that's okay with us.

Another New York Times Article about Cutting the Cable Cord

Another day, and another article about alternatives to accessing TV content that previously was available only via cable subscription.

Here's the latest New York Times article that validates our prediction: "In Search of Apps for Television."

It's worth checking out.

The New York Times validates our prediction about big data

Longtime New York Times tech reporter Steve Lohr, recently reported on the impact that big data will have on the US.  The US "need 140,000 to "190,000 more workers with 'deep analytical' expertise and 1.5 more data-literate managers," he wrote in an article entitled, "The Age of Big Data." The article is an interesting one, well worth checking out.  You can check out our prediction about big data here.