Wow, what a wild ride the past few weeks have been. I’ve been incredibly busy working with various B2B and consumer enthusiast publishers. It’s been exhilarating and I see so much opportunity in the companies I’ve been working with. It’s exciting to see them really embracing online media and making significant impact on their businesses. However, I realize that I’ve been delinquent in keeping my blog up-to-date. I feel kind of like your favorite auto mechanic who is so busy working on other people’s cars that his own car is neglected. So it’s time to get...

At Penton, I used to moderate an emedia discussion forum on our intranet, “The Loop.” I loved the idea sharing, problem solving, and community that we developed out there. Not only was it incredibly useful, but it was a lot of fun as well. So I’ve decided to launch an emedia discussion forum right here, on eMedia Strategist. I created this forum to help publishers and event producers build their online communities and business. Whether you are in business development, publishing management, sales, editorial production, or technology, this is a place to connect with your peers...

John Payne with MedTech Publishing forwarded me a note from a reader who was complaining about the number of irritating, flashing, bright-colored ads on his site, Healthcare IT News. John asked a great question about whether these flashing ads were a norm online and if this was more of a rogue comment or a real problem in publishing. With his permission, I have attached an exerpt from my reply to him and a screenshot of this site the reader was talking about. John, overall, the site’s not too bad. There are 12 paid ad positions per page (or 16 depending on how you count it) and that...

A packed house here at the Westin Times Square. The ABM Digital Veloctiy event definitely shows that emedia remains the hot topic for B2B publishers today. Great job, ABM! Listening to the Organizational Development session and Chuck Richards from Outsell going over their recent organizational research. Interestingly his setup slides talk all about revenue. Many of the CEO comments are about how revenue isn’t as strong online as in print. I actually agree with this statement … to a degree. There will be those companies who set themselves apart and really establish strong revenue models...

I can’t give myself any more extensions and still feel good about this challenge. The reality is that I’ve just simply been travelling too much recently (every week for the past 7 weeks) and trying to finish off strong here at Penton to give my own site much attention. I’ve had maybe 4-5 hours total to spend on my own site since I began this challenge. I guess it’s kind of like a mechanic who spends so much time working on other people’s cars that his own car gets neglected. I’m removing the challenge countdown to take the pressure off, but I’m not giving up....