The value of licensed editions at Forbes

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about what the international licensed editions mean for the business magazine.

Dvorkin writes, “Sometimes my focus involves our licensed editions, as it did when the Internet convulsed over the demise of Flappy Bird, a wildly popular app from a mysterious 29-year-old Vietnamese developer. I asked one of our editors if he knew who ran FORBES VIETNAM. He did. Within hours its editor texted the gamer, then flew from Saigon to Hanoi to beat all other journalists to the first interview.

“There’s a bigger point here. FORBES is the fastest-growing international magazine brand–and the only truly global brand in our direct competitive set. Our 32 licensed editions, all but 4 in local languages, have a total circulation of 1 million. The top five websites among them have a combined monthly audience of 10 million. It goes beyond bragging rights. By reaching out to a network of knowledgeable, hardworking reporters who know the ins and outs of their countries, we can bring more depth and understanding to stories gaining worldwide interest at the speed of the social Web.

“The FORBES global platform began to take shape a decade ago. Paul Klebnikov, who was killed ten years ago bravely exposing corruption in Russia, helped lead the way. Paul, a former FORBES magazine senior editor, moved to Moscow to become the editor of FORBES RUSSIA, one of our first licensed editions. He had reported on Russian billionaires while in New York and continued to do so when he hit the ground there. Paul’s work was the beginning of a model for collaboration. Fourteen licensees helped collect information for this issue’s 28th annual Billionaires List.”

Read more here.