Book Expo America is the large annual convention of the book publishing industry.  For the past few days, thousands of people descended on the Javits Center in New York for the annual ritualistic gathering of the tribes of this 500 year old business.  As regular readers know, this year I have attended the Consumer Electronic Show, the NATPE television convention and the Chicago Auto Show.  Once again I found myself navigating an annual convention of a business that targets the consumer [BEA is primarily for the ‘trade’ or consumer part of the book publishing industry].  I look to see what the industry trends are, and how the business is reflecting and adapting to the radical changes going on in society today. Finally, as a futurist, I look at the business through my own filter of what I see the future to be to gauge whether the business is doing what might be necessary to expand and thrive in this new age we live in. 

The book business is a mature business, which would be expected since Gutenberg initiated it more than 550 years ago.  It is certainly not a growth business.  I attended a Trends 2007 presentation which provided a detailed snapshot of the industry today.  Year to year revenue growth, current and projected out to 2011, is in the 2-3.5% range, but year to year unit sales over all is less than 0.5%.  In other words, any growth is due to increased prices.  Factoring in population growth, …

Last week it was announced that Life magazine would cease publication, again. This is the third death of the magazine since it was founded in 1936. Life was a weekly from 1936 to 1972, when it first stopped publication. It was revived as a monthly in 1978 but then shut down again in 2000. It was resurrected as a newspaper insert in 2004 but never really took hold in that iteration which was an incredibly misguided strategy to begin with.

Life was, simply put, the greatest showcase of quality and historically important photographs in the middle part of the 20th century in America. Many of the greatest photographers in the country dreamed of being a Life photographer, and in fact became great because, in part their photographs appeared in the magazine. I remember as a young boy the thrill of coming home from school on the day that Life magazine was delivered by the mail man. It was a thrill to sit down and spend an hour looking at every photograph and reading every caption. At a time when there were only 5 TV stations coming into the home and newscasts were 15 minutes with no video, Life magazine was truly the window to the world. Why write about this in a place with a tag line “A Future Look at Today”? Well the story of Life magazine is a story about the last 75 years of media and also a story …

In my post on predictions for 2007, I made a specific prediction that the current Internet 2.0 boom would continue and that eyeballs, dollars and influence would migrate from old media to the Internet.  Now this isn’t crystal ball stuff.  Media and advertising professionals live this reality every day.  Just look at your own life.  How much more time do you spend on-line that you did 10, 5 or even 2 years ago?  The debate is around how fast and how much, not if or when.

I read a news item the other day that was, for me, a historically and hugely symbolic underscoring of this flow of power to the Internet.  The world’s oldest newspaper announced that it was ceasing publication on paper and would be only available on-line.

The Swedish newspaper PoIT – which stands for Post och Inrikes Tidningar – is the world’s oldest newspaper still in publication.  It has been continuously published since 1645.  1645!  That is just 90 years after Gutenberg printed his first bible.  The paper was founded by the Swedish Queen Christina and her chancellor during the Thirty Years War.

The Editor, and only employee of PoIT,  Roland Haegglund,   was quoted as saying “The change in format is, of course a major departure for some, possibly a little sad, but is also a natural step”.  Evidently PoIT, had long ago ceased to be a real newspaper, and had become an announcement vehicle for financial. legal and corporate institutions.  When it published its final print version …