Diggings
A blog about recruitment advertising, media, publishing, HR, work, & technology, among other things. |
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Disaggregating Newspapers Won’t Help Most Dailies
2007-12-21 11:54:27
In an interesting post yesterday, Dave Morgan (Executive V.P. of Global Advertising Strategy for AOL) suggests that by disaggregating their businesses and opening up each component part to operate and even compete independently, daily newspapers can save themselves from complete oblivion. Clearly, there is some merit to Morgan’s argument, and some papers (mostly in the weekly newspaper and alternative publishing segments) have already started to take small steps down this path. I also agree with Morgan that the vast majority of dailies in the U.S. will eventually have to transform their business models (radically in most cases) in order to survive. The problem is that very few daily newspapers are equipped to manage such a transformation. Not only is management, for the most part, completely resistant to change, but the core, fundamental characteristics of the daily newspapers themselves are simply not suited for the types of changes that Morgan and the shifting, competitive land ...
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Nick Goes On A Rant; Newspapers Struggle To Capture Local Ads; FCC Tries To Aid The Dailies
2007-12-20 11:14:03
Nick Corcodilos, in his column Ask The Headhunter, went off on a tirade in his post today, ripping job seekers who believe themselves to be too cool to work for sleepy companies that ‘don’t get it’ - it being new technology, social media, the web, etc. It’s a pretty legitimate rant and well worth the read for jobseekers and employers alike.
In a MediaPost post, Erik Sass summarizes the recent Borrell study that indicates that daily newspapers are losing the battle for local advertising online. Local, online only sites have captured 43% of the $2.7 billion local online ad business, while newspapers, despite their seemingly huge advantage in this arena, have only captured 33%. Just 3 years ago, they had 44% of the local online ad market. Just like every aspect of the daily newspaper industry, they’re getting hammered by more effective services that deliver higher value for less cost. 2008 will ndoubtedly be more of the same for the dailies: declining revenue ...
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My Award For Biggest Moron Of 2007 Goes To…
2007-12-20 09:56:07
This Guy…
Orlando Taylor, pictured above, robbed an HSBC bank at the Fulton Mall in Brooklyn last Friday at 10:30 AM. On Saturday, he strolled two blocks further down the street and robbed a Bank of America branch. On Monday, he robbed the same Bank of America branch at 10:00 AM and then again at 2:20 PM. On the same day! On Tuesday, the police finally decided to post a bunch of officers in both the HSBC and Bank of America branches in regular uniform and in plainclothes, hoping the idiot would show up again. And sure enough, at about 9:00AM on Tuesday morning, Taylor was caught outside the HSBC branch after he had peered into the window, seen the police, and turned around to walk away. In his pocket was a note similar to the ones he had used in the first three robberies threatening violence if he wasn’t handed some cash. Congratulations Orlando. That’s some serious brain-power on display.
Tags: Orlando Taylor, Bank Robbers, Butch Cassidy, The Sundance Kid, Bonn ...
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The Rise Of Green Collar Jobs
2007-12-19 09:48:57
I’ve linked to No Impact Man before, but Colin Beavan’s year-long experiment in trying to live in a manner that creates zero impact on the environment and his corresponding blog about his experiences in doing so are fascinating. In today’s post, Colin provides a single, powerful example of how a transition to a more environmentally conscious society will not only help save the planet, but will also result in healthier citizens, faster commutes, friendlier cities, and robust growth in jobs and business activity in certain sectors of the economy. While Colin cites the potential windfall for the biking industry, he also points out that:
There are so many other industries for which there are also incredible opportunities for green profits and jobs:
Tens of thousands of construction industry jobs would be created in weatherizing the buildings in New York City alone
An increasing public transportation infrastructure affords huge possibilities for profit and jobs (the New Y ...
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Two Interesting Stats About The U.S. Workforce
2007-12-18 09:08:07
The 2008 HR Trendbook had some interesting articles on a variety of topics, but two statistics caught my attention. The first was that in 2005, Hispanics represented 14% of the U.S. population but 22% of the U.S. Workforce. If trends continue, Hispanics will represent 32% of the population in 2050 and 55% of the U.S. workforce.
The second stat was very puzzling. A SHRM survey of HR managers in March/April of 2007 indicated that an astounding 36% of HR managers are only just now becoming aware of the fact that baby boomers will be retiring in the years ahead, presenting employers with incredible challenges. This is down from 38% of HR managers who were just becoming aware of the phenomena in 2005. So more than a third of HR managers were oblivious to this issue until this year? The issues surrounding retiring baby boomers stand as arguably the most pressing HR issues facing employers, and I find it hard to imagine that so many HR managers are just beginning to recognize the issue.
Don&r ...
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…And I Endorse This Commercial!
2007-12-17 17:41:29
ZoomInfo is sponsoring RecruitingBlogs.com’s Best Recruiting Blog Awards of 2007 and the voting has begun. Diggings was nominated for the Best Sourcing Blog, and I would be honored to represent all 13 of my readers among the prestigious winners of this year’s awards. If you like this blog and feel so inclined, I would greatly appreciate your vote. If you really like this blog, tell everyone you know to vote for me. Click here to vote (actually, you’ll need to click on the ‘click here to vote’ link once you go to recruitingblogs.com) or click on the light blue ‘Vote For My Blog’ banner ad on the right side of this blog. Thanks!Tags: Vote For Pedro, Class Presidents, Vending Machines in the Cafeteria, Slimy Politicians, Kiss-Ass Politicians, Begging For Votes, ZoomInfo, RecruitingBlogs.com, Jason Davis, Groveling
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Credit Suisse’s John Klim Likes Daily Newspapers?!?!?
2007-12-17 12:52:25
John Klim, an analyst with Credit Suisse, just released a fairly upbeat report on the daily newspaper industry, claiming that the decimation they have experienced of late, particularly in their classified advertising business, will eventually abate. The report specifically identifies the New York Times and Gannett as the stars within the industry, while the rest, including McClatchy, E.W. Scripps, Lee, Media General, and Belo, were pretty much given a neutral rating. The report does predict that revenues will decline 3.8% in 2008, but that constitutes a smaller decline than the industry has experienced in recent years.
My prediction is that the losses the daily newspapers have experienced, as bad as they’ve been for the past few years, will accelerate even further in 2008. Even if the housing market does recover, the dailies will not recapture the business they lost. Just as employment classifieds failed to recover following the decline in the 2001-2003 recession, real-estate cla ...
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The Best Story I’ve Heard In A Month…
2007-12-14 12:31:44
Listening to a Slate podcast this week on the life of Robert Craig ‘Evel’ Knievel, the author of Evel Knievel’s biography, Steve Mandich, told a great anecdote about the egomaniacal stunt man. Back when Evel was just starting out, around 1967 or so, he jumped over the fountains in front of the new Caesar’s Palace and slammed into the restraining wall. He was rushed to the hospital, where he lay in a coma for 37 days. Asked by a Sports Illustrated reporter in 2002 what it felt like to be in a coma for 37 days, Evel, with his typical bluster, shot back, “How the $#@!$ should I know! I was in a $%#@!#$% coma!”
It reminded me of the great scene in The Pursuit of DB Cooper, when an FBI agent gets locked in the trunk of a car by the infamous guy who parachuted out of a commercial airliner with suitcases of stolen cash. The agent’s partner comes running up the hill, unlocks the trunk, and asks his partner which way Cooper went. The partner replies, & ...
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Deal Activity In Recruiting & Media Space Still Frothy
2007-12-13 10:07:01
I left a comment this morning on one of Cheezhead’s posts, commenting about whether or not Edgeio’s demise was unique to their business or indicative of what’s to come in 2008 in the online recruiting space. While I think Edgeio had their own issues that created significant problems for them (detailed here), I also think that the chaos in this space will continue unabated next year. There will be plenty of failures, consolidations, and general pruning. I also think that there will be tremendous innovation among players in the space, as well as an abundance of new entrants into the field. Private equity dollars will continue to flow into the sector, and M&A activity will remain high.
Interestingly enough, right after posting my comments, I saw the following two stories: Jobvite raised $7.2M from CMEA Ventures, and The Publishing Group of America was bought by Bain Capital and Shamrock Capital Growth Fund. Looks like 2008 will be just as interesting, dynamic, and co ...
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Where Do Americans Get Their News?
2007-12-12 12:41:26
The ongoing Newspaper Association of America (NAA) marketing campaign continues to dumdfound and amaze, with the release of another bizarre ad touting the daily newspaper industry. I’ll leave aside the critique of the image itself (comments on the campaign’s aesthetics can be found here and here) and focus on the message about where Americans get their news. While the copy in the ad suggests that Americans get their news from the daily newspaper, the facts indicate otherwise.
A Pew Research Center study indicates that 29% of Americans go online for their news at least 3 times per week, up from 20% in 2000. The numbers get even worse for younger Americans, and absolutely abysmal for younger, more educated Americans. As the study points out:
Education continues to be the biggest single factor driving online news use, largely due to the continuing gap in Internet access. Fully half of college graduates regularly use the web for news, compared with just 18% of high school gradu ...
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Shameless Begging Never Hurt Anyone Did It?
2007-12-12 11:44:59
Jason Davis, RecruitingBlogs.com, and ZoomInfo are accepting nominations for the best recruiting blog on the web, with voting to begin December 14th. A few days ago, I went to the site to nominate my own blog (as all good bloggers do, right?) and was pleasantly surprised to discover that someone had already nominated Diggings. I have no idea who nominated my blog, but thanks to whoever did. At any rate, if you like this blog and feel so inclined, please feel free to click here after December 14th and vote for my blog.
Tags: Jason Davis, RecruitingBlogs.com, ZoomInfo, Best Blogs, Best Recruiting Blog, Adam Vinatieri, Vote For Me I want My ESPY, Shameless Self-Promotion, Grovelling For Votes, I’d Never Make It As A Politician
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Classified Ad Company Edgeio Shuts Down & Blames Investors
2007-12-10 16:20:00
Edgeio announced late last week that it was ceasing operations and looking to liquidate its assets. The company, which had recently raised $6M in capital ($3M of which came from Intel), tried to build a business by aggregating classified listings from all over the web. In explaining the reasons why the business was unsuccessful, CEO Keith Teare stated, “I would say it came down to lack of vision on the part of investors to see the platform as part of the future.” The arrogance and absurdity of Teare’s statement is dumbfounding.
Businesses, especially start-ups, can fail for thousands of reasons, but shareholders are rarely, rarely among them. In point of fact, I should say investors never cause a business to fail, but I can think of a few cases where they actually could cause a business to fail if, for instance, a lawsuit among different classes of investors paralyzed a business to such an extent that it couldn’t function. But these are extremely rare, and in mo ...
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IBM Abandons Major Job Boards…
2007-12-05 09:53:43
In a recent post, Chris Russell - founder of JobBoarders, highlighted an article in HR Magazine with some quotes on the growing dissatisfaction with the major job boards.
HR magazine has a new article out on job board security. It’s not online yet but there were some interesting quotes I wanted to pass along.
“…employers have become increasingly dependent on job boards, investing nearly $6 billion in such postings last year alone…As competition in some professions increases, job board spending by employers during the next five years is expected to grow by more than 10 percent annually.
“IBM, the country’s fourth largest employer recruitis for thousands of vacancies around the world each year. And while it once relied on boards like Monster, CareerBuilder and Hotjobs for candidates, Schreyer says he has been forced to find alternatives. If they delivered, I would still use them.”
“Candidates have stopped trusting the boards…T ...
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A Few Articles Worth Reading…
2007-12-04 10:17:46
• Shops stand to lose in digital revolution
• Print media might benefit from writer’s strike
• Rough October spells Q4 trouble for daily newspapers
• McClatchy down 69% since Knight-Ridder purchase (Dow up 17%)
Tags: Advertising Agencies, Digital Revolution, Print Media, Writer’s Strike, Newspaper Industry, McClatchy, Knight-Ridder
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