Hard Times for Media Companies in the City

OK not picking on Trinity Mirror but examine following facts.

they own

• 5 national newspapers - including Daily Mirror, Daily Record
• 15o regional newspapers including traditional cash cows such as WesternMail, Liverpool Echo and Birmingham Post
• 200 local press websites
• And their acquired online portfolio - including Hot Group/Workthing bought for £55m, Email4property, Gaapweb, SecsintheCity, TotallyLegal/TotallyFinancial amd 33% stakeholders in fish4.

And their market capitalisation yesterday was £134m

ouch....

Google Bio

Its not new but i picked up an old book on creation and growth of Google - just amazing and inspiring http://www.amazon.com/Google-Story-Hottest-Business-Technology/dp/0553383663/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215977768&sr=8-1 - the most brilliant thing about it - was that it was very late in the growth of the company that they even considered how are we actually going to make this a profitable company - amazingly everyone (microsoft, yahoo etc) thought there was no money on free search!!!

They created a great product first and then the dollars came later, multo multo dollars

cynic, heal thyself

Having a chat about online recruitment in the car on saturday (as you do...) - and i have finally worked out why i am such a curmudgeon about many innovations in online media - and it is essentially that i am personally not into the gadgets and the fads - so i tend to think exclusively in the realms of how this may work practically and even then how it can be used for clients to recruit and brand themselves. Which is a pretty non creative, non blue sky thinking (dare i say dull) appraoch to life. But its been the same personally with mobile phones, PDAs, Laptops etc. I am personnally just not that excited about the iPhone.
So professionally while i think it enables me to see a products application and translate that into the business world and not to fritter a clients precious budget - it does mean i have to force myslef to be persuaded of the possibilities and to open my mind. (at least once a year anyway)

Print Revenue Decline

I was planning to write a long post on the awful results being posted bythe publishing groups Trinity Mirror, Johnson Press et al. Print revenues being hammered - stupid statements from exceedingly well paid chief execs stating thats the problems are about the economy and its cyclical. But come on - the debate has been over for a long time now hasn't it (and yes i know i am talking here to a very small group of recruitment cognoscenti).
Print is great - i love newspapers - but they will not run any recruitment ads within 5-10 years. End of.

Just a personal note - i have been wanting to use the word cognoscenti in an article for ages. lovely!

Succumbed to Twitter

So it comes to us all that you can only sit on the edge of the playground looking on for so long when actually you really want to join the game. I can close my ears to the evangelists like Paul http://twitter.com/CarveConsulting and http://twitter.com/mattalder Matt for so long but when i see a fellow miserable heretic like Alastair http://twitter.com/alcartwright joining in, then i know the time has come to Tweet away.

Come and join us - you know you want to...
https://twitter.com/domsumners