Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman writes Thursday that Time Inc.’s Fortune magazine has a seemingly promising future despite talk of its demise earlier this year due to the launch of competitor Conde Nast Portfolio, a new editor, and an advertising slump.
Friedman wrote, “The real growth will come online, and the competition there is even more ferocious than at newsstands. Fortune has to slug it out 24/7 with the likes of The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance and Bloomberg — as well as MarketWatch, publisher of this column.
“BusinessWeek, for its part, recently demonstrated its commitment to the Web by assigning No. 2 editor John Byrne, one of the most ambitious business editors on the scene, to run its online efforts.”
Editor Andy “Serwer intends to hone his focus on advertising-friendly areas online with coverage of technology, Wall Street, luxury items and career management, among other areas. While Fortune had a poor reputation for getting staffers to write for the Web, Serwer said that this won’t be a handicap.
“‘Between now and the end of the year, we’ll have between 10 and 20 Web-only writers,’ he told me.”
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