BusinessWeek's inner changes

View Comments

• “Though BusinessWeek.com attracts a lot of page views, 45 percent of those are from slide shows, which Web publishers consider a gimmicky way to increase hits. Only 16 percent of page views came from original articles for the six months ended in April.”

  What a pity it would be if BusinessWeek were to perish. As long as it survives, publishing is better off for having a reminder of the fate that awaits the arrogant, the blinkered and, most of all, the incompetent. Like the decrepit drunks that temperance preachers would trot out to highlight the consequences of moral folly, BusinessWeek exists as a salutary lesson – and that is perhaps its sole remaining virtue.

  Consider the above snippet from The Times. BW page views are running at around 50 million per month, according to the visionary John Byrne, who has managed to blow through $21 million (according to paidcontent.com) on two years of reader interaction. If you aren’t hip to the sort of lingo that, up until recently, impressed the short little pants of Terry McGraw, that means Pedro in Podunk posts a comment on a thread and a BW writer links to it in a subsequent post. Kinda like vanity publishing, expect the publisher pays to amplify the ranter. Twenty-one million bucks! As a business model, it’s a vision alright.

  But wait, there’s more. At 50 million page views, non-slideshow content is generating just 8 million page views (or thereabouts) per month, and that figure represents between one half and one third the bona fide, valued-by-advertisers traffic the site was pulling six years ago.

  Then Terry brought Adler the Unbelievable on board, put Kathy Rebello in charge of online, gutted the DC bureau, chased off everyone over 50 (mostly to their lawyers), hired Jack and Suzy, and filled the site with those scam-a-rama slide shows. (The Best Seersucker Suit! Wonderful Cleveland’s Real Estate Bargains! Batman’s Incredible 401K Portfolio). God only knows what the little fella saw in Steve and Kathy. Maybe they crouched diplomatically at the knee, rather than bending over, while reciting their latest buzz-word mantras in his shell-like ear.

  Now Steve and the brains trust reckon they need to be telling business types what they need to know. Gee, Steve, you reckon? A business mag that deals with business problems! Eureka moments don’t come much bigger than that these days, not on 49th and Sixth Avenue, anyway.

  Explain it all to the new owner, Steve, I dare you.

• "Roger F" is the feckless Aussie Roger Franklin a onetime copy editor at BusinessWeek Online, whose raging incompetence, and constant complaints and inability to perform even the most basic tasks, finally caused him to be fired by Kathy Rebello who had given him numerous chances to buckle down and shape up. BWOL's copy desk began to perform better the minute this marginally intelligent buffoon was out of the picture. It was not uncommon for Roger's battered staff, to work until 3 AM putting the daily publish to bed. His unequaled ability to repeatedly leave practically any project upon which he laid his grimy whiskey-sodden hands in worse shape than when he found it is still legendary among those who remember is late-night tirades, and inane questions via instant messenger. He is a toxic person, and his tirade above proves it. How he was ever hired I still fail to understand, though I suspect the equally incompetent Mike Mercurio had something to do with it.

• Aw, c'mon, Timmy. Tell us what you really think.