Earlier this evening on del.icio.us/rexblog, I noted that Dylan Stableford at FishbowlNY was displaying Cold War-era Kremlinological skills by observing that a Time Inc. press release today seems hellbent on describing Time Inc. as anything but a magazine publisher. I feel a bit relieved that Henry Luce didn’t live to see the day when the magazine company he started was described as “a multi-media content company reaching consumers on every platform.”

(For any of you who may have just stumbled into this thread, let me note that in this post, I am referring specifically to Time Inc., the operating unit of Time Warner that in the year 2006 published magazines that accounted for 22.6% of all U.S. consumer magazine advertising. Again, I’m not talking about all of Time Warner, but narrowly on that operating entity called Time Inc. that publishes “approximately” 130 magazines and is the largest publisher of magazines in the U.S. and U.K.)

After reading Dylan’s earlier post, I noticed Scott Karp’s observation of a recent quote by Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons in response to the perpetual rumor that Time Inc. may be for sale: “I like our publishing business, I like the magazine business and I like the fact that it’s portable and can be moved into digital,” he said. “I am not an advocate of selling Time Inc.”

Asks Scott:

“So what does this mean, exactly? Does it mean that a magazine’s entire business can be “ported” online, i.e. so that it stops publishing in print? Or does it just mean that the content assets can be moved online.

Dylan and Scott got me thinking: What do the executives at Time Inc. think the “business” of Time Inc. is?

I figured a good way to get a sense of how “management” wants to define the business of Time Inc. is to follow-up on Dylan’s parsing of the Time Inc. press release, but rather than look at the “announcement” portion of the press release, to look at the “boilerplate” portion — that paragraph or two that is included at the bottom of every press release that provides a statement “about” the company or companies issuing the release.

Here is a comparison of Time Inc. press release boilerplate from May, 2006 and May, 2007:

May, 2006: “Time Inc. is the world’s leading magazine publisher, with more than 150 titles that are read more than 300 million times worldwide on a monthly basis and account for nearly a quarter of the total advertising revenues of U.S. consumer magazines.”

May, 2007: “Time Inc., a Time Warner company, is one of the largest content companies in the world. With approximately 130 magazines, it is the largest magazine publisher in the U.S. and U.K. Each month, one out of every two American adults reads a Time Inc. magazine, and one out of every 10, who are online, visits a company web site (more than 19 million unique visitors). Time Inc.’s popular brands and successful franchises extend to online, television, cable VOD, satellite radio, mobile devices, events and branded products.”

I guess that’s how the executives of a “publishing company” that is not for sale mean when they say “it’s portable.” Also, I think it’s amusing that in the press release, the corporate communications people don’t know exactly how many magazines the company publishes, but they guess it’s “approximately 130.” Note to the new CFO: Provide the PR Department with that “how many magazines we publish” metric.

For the record, I think the executives of Time Warner are smart to position the company as something broader than a magazine publishing company. And I pity the Time Inc. executives who obviously would rather call it a “media” company but have to call it a “content” company because they are part of a multinational corporation where other units have already grabbed up all the cool words like “online” and “digital” and “broadcasting” and “film.”

And finally, I’ll admit that even small magazine publishing companies that are experiencing significant growth in areas outside of traditional print properties are burdened by the limitations conveyed in the word “publishing.” And yes, that is a cryptic message that doesn’t require one to be a Kremlinologist to decipher.

Technorati Tags: magazines, media, timeinc

For the past week or so, the weather in Nashville has been perfect. Achingly perfect. Vivid and full of spring color like that photo of the flowers I took a few days ago while walking along the Harpeth River Greenway. When it is that beautiful, it is hard to conjure up the darkness necessary to understand why Michael Arrington and Robert Scoble are longing for the good old days when everyone who had a weblog moved to Silicon Valley so they could hang out on Michael’s patio every Friday night. Frankly, it is so beautiful in Nashville these days, that I had to stop reading both their posts a sentence or two into them.

I think their gloom has something to do with the fact that no one they know seems to be talking about anything other than the transactions and business of Web 2.0 (note to Mike and Robert: that’s what happens when you blog ’round the clock about Web 2.0 transactions). They seem to be suggesting that, after “the bust,” back when no-one would fund or buy anything, there was this golden-age when all the charlatans moved away from Silicon Valley and it was left to the true-geeks who did stuff because it was cool, not because of how much money they could make. According to this Web 2.0 creation myth (thanks, Gabe), all the charlatans are now back in town and it takes the Moscone Center to handle all the people who want to pitch Michael on some goofy startup idea — and that sucks.

At least, that’s what I think they are saying before I shut down my computer to have lunch with a friend. Fortunately, in Nashville I get to go to restaurants where all the waiters are budding musicians, not budding Web 2.0 entrepreneurs. In Nashville, I get to talk with people about the weather — have I mentioned how beautiful it is? — and not Ruby on Rails.

One last thought on this topic before I head home to check out the tomatoes I planted recently: One of the really cool things about having a blog and being rather prolific in posting to it is this: When you start reading things about web-venture booms and busts and how people are obsessed with the “money” thing and not the “idea” thing, not only can you recall previously having lived through such a cycle, you can actually go back and read what you wrote when you lived through it. Dave Winer can remember the booms and busts and what he was writing at the time. Kara Swisher was writing during previous booms and busts, so she can recall with ease how jaded one becomes when everyone you know becomes a web entrepreneur.

What shocks me, however, is that I, a non-resident of Silicon Valley who lives in such a middle-America-sounding place as Nashville, can point back to a post on this weblog written on December 27, 2000 that had the heading, “Dot.com crash, enough already.”

Okay, remember, I wrote the following in late December, 2000, when it was hard to find any optimism about the future of the web:

At some point in the near future…we (will) conclude that it is not significant to our lives anymore that dumb businesses managed by dumb individuals and funded by dumb investors die. Even smart businesses managed by smart individuals and smart investors die. Businesses start and die every day. They always have. They always will. I am old enough - and have been fortunate enough - to have succeeded significantly and failed miserably and frankly, the failures have done more for me than the successes.

The real impact of the Internet will come when coverage shifts from “the deal flow” onto “the idea flow”…The roller-coaster of explosive hype, a disillusioning trough of despair and the underestimation of (a) technology’s positive longterm impact can be seen playing out as the marketplace and media and beleaguered participants try to make sense of the current ‘crash-meltdown-depression.’ As tiresome as the over-hyped ‘boom’ story was, the (’bust’) story is long due for a correction. Let’s move on.

I guess my advice is still the same. Let’s move on. But not before we stop, take a walk along a greenway and smell the flowers.

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