Memo to new Bloomberg multimedia CEO: Seize the day

Larry Kramer, who founded Marketwatch and was also a business reporter at the Washington Post, writes an open memo to Andy Lack, the new CEO of Bloomberg’s multimedia operations, urging him to greatly expand its Internet operations.

Kramer, writing on The Daily Beast, states, “Go ahead and build Bloomberg TV into a powerhouse around the world, and make Bloomberg Radio a major player on all audio platforms. But on the web front, don’t just improve the website, seize the day. Use the digital platform to build the news business of the future, where storytelling makes liberal use of all forms of media…text, audio, video, photography, combined into one powerful news product.

“Here’s the best part: Even though almost everyone in your new company is scared of the Internet because they think putting a lot of stuff on the free Internet will hurt terminal sales, THEY ARE WRONG! DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM! They are evildoers!

“The fact is, even though all Bloomberg terminal subscribers get the news on their terminals, it’s the way the news is integrated into all that other data and information that makes it so valuable. No one will stop subscribing to a Bloomberg terminal purely because the news is available somewhere else. Without the other financial data—both real time and historical—the news just won’t give a Bloomberg terminal user enough. The speed with which everything moves on the terminal is also unchallenged. It’s like a private Internet, without the spikes and other issues that can slow the Internet down.”

Read more here.