Why Institutional Investor has ended its print edition

Kip McDaniel of Institutional Investor writes about why the 51-year-old magazine is becoming online only.

McDaniel writes, “For example, to those seeing this on InstitutionalInvestor.com, I know how long you’ve been on the page, on average, and which paragraph most of you get stuck on. I know exactly how many scrolled beyond the first three paragraphs. I know if you arrived via an email link, a social network, through a Google search, or just by browsing. I know how many of you leave this page without first moving elsewhere on our website, and I’ll know if you ever come back. And so, like Snapchat for your teenager upstairs, Chartbeat is insanely addictive to me and other editors who want to know, in real time, which articles draw people in.

“The problem with print is that if you are one of the 110,000 people physically holding this magazine, I have absolutely no idea whether you are reading this article or not — and neither do the advertisers who pay for adjacency.

“This cascade of data has caused advertisers to almost entirely abandon print magazines. The first issue of Institutional Investor in 1967 had 25 pages of advertisements. This, our final issue, will have fewer than six.”

Read more here.