Biz magazine publisher now gets bulk of ad revenue online

Steve Lohr of the New York Times writes Monday about International Data Group, the publisher of business magazines such as MacWorld, CIO, ComputerWorld and PCWorld, that now gets more than half of its advertising revenue from its Web sites.

Lohr writes, “A privately held company, whose magazines include Computerworld, InfoWorld, PC World, Macworld and CIO, it appears to have made a profitable migration to the Internet, with revenue from online ads now surpassing print revenue.

“Advertisers and readers of high-tech publications have moved online more swiftly than other audiences, so I.D.G. may offer a glimpse of the future of publishing. Yet the transition at I.D.G. came only after years of investment, upheaval and changes in its practice of journalism.

“‘The excellent thing, and good news, for publishers is that there is life after print — in fact, a better life after print,’ said Patrick J. McGovern, the founder and chairman of I.D.G.

“The biggest single step in the company’s online shift came on April 2, 2007, when the last print edition of InfoWorld appeared and it became a Web-only publication. InfoWorld, a weekly, started out as Intelligent Machines Journal in 1978; I.D.G. bought it a year later, and it has long been one of the company’s flagship magazines.”

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