Global CRM

Global CRM

Now that I've posted my bio, it's time to really start the commentary. I've also published this as a comment on my bio, a ridiculous place to have published it. This is a good sign that online publishing is something that should be left to professionals!

OK ... let's dig in.

I've been putting a lot of comments on my old blog, which I've now taken down. I may pull out some of that material for here, but in the meantime, the big question I want to tackle is how the "new economy" (read: new information flow controlled by consumers) is changing the way business is run.

My friend Scott told me today that Time magazine's print edition starts off with a list of its online resources at TIME.com. (I don't read TIME, since I get most of my news off the Web, or from other magazines such as The Economist, Forbes, and various IT/supply chain/market research publications.)

This is a major acknowledgment that the Internet is affecting how people get information -- and that TIME is embracing the change. The monetizing model isn't promising at this moment for online news though: People generally won't pay for online content (although the trend is improving there), and ad revenues from online news sites are just a fraction of publication income.

Will that model change, so that publications can stay in business? I hope so. We need an independent, investigative press. To support this, they need to make money -- with no strings attached.

The challenge is obvious: How do publications prove their value? How do they use this value to continue an independent, investigative capacity?

The irony is that a free press is not a freebie.