Forbes has a smart business model

Bob Garfield writes for Media Post about how business magazine Forbes has turned itself around with a new business model.

Garfield writes, “Since adopting the new model, Forbes has seen a 67% increase in unique monthly visitors. In January, according to comScore, it attracted 16 million uniques — up 26% year-to-year. Measured by trailing 12 months, digital ad revenue is up 18% since the relaunch and in 2012 Forbes had its biggest digital growth since 2006.

“Now, obviously, these are carefully chosen results — no doubt the result of some fancy cherry-picking. But never mind that. Here are the words that matter:

“‘Up’ and ‘increase’ and ‘growth.’ Oh — and according to Chief Revenue Officer Meredith Levien: ‘The company is profitable, nicely profitable and has been increasingly profitable for the past 3 years.’

“A profitable magazine with a growing audience. A growing, engaged audience. If you click on Forbes.com, you’ll see a (nearly) real-time meter of all news posts, the tally of comments and the tally of shares. The ‘shares’ is a big number — because, as it turns out, readers care about more than elegant prose and artfully constructed narratives.

“‘The thought that those who can inform are only journalists is kind of narrow, bordering on…whatever,’ says Lewis D’Vorkin, chief product officer.”