Black,Black Black, Black

Paul Conley writes this visceral piece about the future of b2b. I make no apology for quoting from his summary,

"1. The B2B publishing industry -- which is now dominated by giant print companies and smaller Web-only companies -- is about to collapse.2. When the dust settles, B2B journalism will still be here -- but many of the companies that make up the industry will be gone.3. The dominant business models of both the past and present will fail."

The market has already decided this is so for many of the public companies. Centaur Media's share price hit a new all time low of 36p this morning, valuing it at around £50m - a third of its float price. They are not alone - just a bit ahead of the curve.

We have argued on this blog for some radical thinking to solve the problem but there is precious little evidence of anything other than cost cutting. When Steve Austin lost most his body parts in an accident the surgeons did not build the bionic man with an axe. The leaders of B2B companies cannot build a new model industry from the crash damaged cadavre of the old model with a cost axe either.

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• Paul Conley: B2B industry 'as we know it' about to collapse