B2B Memes » The Future of Print

Another Nail in the RSS Coffin

John Bethune — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:38:55 +0000

The default Paper.li view (click to enlarge)

When I first saw the details on the Flipboard iPad app (via Rexblog, I believe), I figured my days of using NetNewsWire on a daily basis were numbered. By creating a newspaper out of the Twitter users you follow, Flipboard offers an incredibly convenient way of reading what they recommend. But since I’ve been holding out for gen 2 of the iPad, the death of my RSS habit was strictly theoretical.

Now that I’ve seen Paper.li, a new Web-based product similar to Flipboard, I think I can hear the nail being firmly hammered into NNW’s coffin. (Yes, I know that the underlying technology of RSS is alive and well; I’m just talking about my use of an RSS reader.)

By drawing its content from a Twitter feed, Paper.li applies a personally meaningful filter to my reading. Rather than subscribing to unmoderated streams of content from sites that only sometimes have articles that interest me, I can now directly read what the Twitter users I follow write or recommend.

The site does a reasonably good job of categorizing the Twittered recommendations into content-based buckets (technology, education, arts & entertainment, business) and types of media (video, stories). It also picks up hashtags like #prodmgmt, adding an invitation to read a paper based on that tag. Since hashtags are, for me, hit or miss, I’m not too impressed—but that could change.

The Paper.li list view (click to enlarge)

Wisely, the site also allows you to view all your articles in a list format, which looks less interesting but offers quicker access to linked content. I have a feeling I’ll tend to favor this view over the default one.

You don’t even need a Twitter account to use Paper.li. You can enter the user name of your favorite Twitterer, like Jeff Jarvis or Mark Schaeffer, to see a newspaper based on their feeds.

The site is supported by Google display ads, which to my eye fit in fairly well with the content. In theory, the ads should be related to content, but my particular Twitterfeed seems to be too ill-defined to produce ads I might actually click on (although I wonder if it is just coincidence that the EasyCloset ad showed up a day after I visited the site).

Since this is my first look at Paper.li (I only learned of it today as I listened to Net@Night while treadmilling), it may turn out to be one of those flash-in-the-pan nice ideas that I quickly abandon. But for the moment, it looks like the real thing.

Content’s Evil Twin: Advertorial

John Bethune — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:33:17 +0000

This morning, the Los Angeles Times passed yet another milestone on the road to ruin of what was once a great newspaper. When I opened it to section two (the awkwardly named “LATEXTRA”), I experienced the following sequence of thoughts:

Wow, Universal Studios burned down yesterday.
Hold on, it says “ADVERTISEMENT” above the photo.
Oh, this whole thing is just an ad for Universal Studio’s new King Kong attraction.
Unseemly expletive.

As explained in detail on Charles Apple’s blog, what I mistook for a real newspaper was in fact a four-page advertising wrap. In other words, an advertorial.

When I was in traditional publishing, I fought to set limits to advertorials, but ultimately had to tolerate them. In my liberated state, though, I can finally say it: Advertorials are evil.

When I say advertorial, I’m not talking about all sponsored content that appears in a publication. Rather, I’m referring to any sponsored content that attempts to deceive the reader, even briefly, into mistaking it for something it’s not.

I’ve talked here before about how publishing and content marketing exist on a continuum, not distinctly separate, but more like siblings. Well, advertorial is like an evil twin, lurking in a vague netherworld between or above or below journalism and content marketing.

Its modus operandi is deception, not transparency. Both publishers and content marketers should disavow it, now and forever.

The Coming Content Marketing-Publishing Continuum

John Bethune — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:21:05 +0000

Writing on Foliomag.com earlier this month, blogger Josh Gordon spun a comment heard at the Folio: show into a bullish prediction for print magazines. Although the grounds for his optimism might be questioned, I’ll leave that to prophet of print doom Private Frazer and others. What interested me most in Gordon’s premise was a point he didn’t follow up—the potential convergence, whether in print or online, of traditional publishing and content marketing.

The comment that keyed Gordon’s column came from Kerry Smith, CEO of Red 7 Media (publisher of Folio:, by the way). As reported by Gordon, Smith said that even as direct revenue from print is declining, the medium is becoming more valuable. The reason for this, he said, is that “his magazines are most often the first point of contact leading to the sale of all the other services he is now selling.”

Gordon went on to observe that “today, publishers of all kinds are using the presence they have in their markets to start related businesses.” That is to say, publishers are becoming content marketers.

As Gordon pointed out, this is not a new trend. But what was once, for most magazines, a tiny ancillary-revenue slice is now making up an ever-growing share of the total pie.

Now let’s suppose that as this trend develops among traditional publishers, a reverse trend takes root among content marketers. As the media content marketers produce get more and more sophisticated, advertising and even paid subscriptions will likely become viable revenue streams.

It isn’t difficult to imagine a future in which instead of a sharp distinction between content marketing and publishing there is a continuum.

On one end is the pure publishing model, in which all revenues come from advertising and subscriptions.

On the other is pure content marketing, where the money is entirely in sales of products and services.

In between is the increasingly crowded spectrum of publishers selling products and content marketers selling advertising and subscriptions.

It’s trendy for content marketers to say that we’re all publishers. Soon it may be just as hip for publishers to declare that we’re all content marketers.

The Shift to New Media Cannot Be Gradual

John Bethune — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:56:19 +0000

CJR: Huge culture gap between print and online

In the B2B publisher’s dream world, the transition to online media would come as a natural evolution from print. The vocabulary, the ethos, the culture, the methods would all be organic extensions of print.

Reality, of course, is brutally different.

The shift to online media is not an extrapolation of the past but a sharp break with it. Until traditional B2B publishers accept and adapt to this reality, they will remain stuck in the past.

So far, it seems, they’re still looking backwards, to judge from two recent surveys of magazine personnel. One, from the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) and the Medill School at Northwestern University, focused on B2B publications. Though the other, from the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), looked exclusively at consumer magazines, its findings ring true for B2B.

The ASBPE/Medill study, announced February 26, found that editors feel unprepared and undertrained for working in new media. Moreover, they think that their publishers lack the vision necessary to succeed online. More than a third of them had no company training at all in the past year, and two-thirds found what training was offered to be inadequate.

The CJR survey, released March 1, looked more broadly at the relationship between print and online cultures within magazine brands. It found that the print side of magazines receives disproportionate attention, with the online side suffering as a result from lower editorial standards, inadequate online experience among staff, and restrictive or poorly defined editorial missions.

Not surprisingly for an organization of editors, the ASBPE sees corporate management as the problem, and tends to cast editors as victims. But it might be healthier for editors to share at least some part of the blame. If they sit back and wait to be trained, they are doomed. What training they may be given, if ever, will be limited in scope and quality. Editors need to take responsibility for their own training, and not wait for others to show them the way.

But as both the ASBPE and CJR studies show, the larger problem is with the organization as a whole. The ASBPE study seems to suggest that the solution is for those organizations to offer more training. But the CJR study underscores that the problem is not insufficient training but old-media bias:

“Magazines often privilege print publications over their Web counterparts. According to one respondent, for example, the Web version is ‘largely seen as inferior, compared to what runs in the magazine’ despite enjoying a readership five times larger, ‘because of a vestigial elitism as to its being more important if it runs in print.’”

The problem, of course, is that for most publishers, the bulk of their money is still coming from print. Since they want to keep the cash cow in the coal mine alive for as long as possible, their goal is a gradual transition to online.

And that, of course, is just a strategy for failure. You can’t serve two masters at once; you have to choose one. Moreover, you can’t adopt online media gradually. Trying to do so is really just choosing to keep print as your master.

Publishers, start by trying this: Tell your print editors they are online staff first and foremost.

And don’t just say it. Act on it.

“Web-first” is a strategy many have talked about, but few (such as IDG and Vance) have implemented. Talk has to be matched by action. Change the work your editors do accordingly. Make the transition, as one CJR respondent put it, “from a print publication supplemented with online articles to an online publication supplemented with print editions.” Follow the model described by another respondent: “Instead of developing stories for print and online and then republishing them online, we now do the opposite–develop for online, and . . . pick the strongest articles to appear in print.”

Editors, a word to the wise. Don’t wait around for your company to follow this or similar advice. The lure of the cash cow is simply too strong for them to reorient operations from the substantial but declining revenue flow from print towards the small but growing income from online. Learning your way around blogs, podcasts, online video, and social media is not like taking on vector calculus. Just jump in and start training yourself.

The ASBPE and CJR surveys should be a wake-up call to publishers and editors alike. It’s time to change masters.

Gimmicks and the Decline of Print

John Bethune — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:52:10 +0000

In an article published this week on Folio:‘s Web site, Jill Ambroz reviews a panoply of print “innovations” that, she writes, “are breathing fresh air into a mature industry that is battling its own digital counterparts for survival.” It’s hard to tell how seriously she takes these innovations, especially as she twice refers to them as gimmicks (not counting the headline).

Either she believes the words are synonyms, or she’s sending a not so subtle message about her true feelings. Or perhaps she’s just fulfilling an obligation to be objective by looking for a middle ground between credulity and skepticism.

Fortunately, I have no such obligation, so I’ll just say it. They are gimmicks. That is, cheap tricks designed to attract attention, not tools to convey information. Far from saving print, they simply confirm its decline.

As gimmicks go, they are effective. What’s not to like about technologies like 3-D lenticular covers, tri-perf mix-and-match cover photos, or e-ink inserts—or the pure joy, evidently, of being able to “literally feel and hear” the head of a video game character tearing off as you turn a page? Maybe Esquire‘s recent augmented-reality issue fell flat, but at least it was fun for a few minutes to try it out.

To their credit, even the proponents of these gimmicks seem realistic about their value. The point is not to reverse the decline of print, but to get attention while you still can. “In this era,” Esquire‘s editor told Ambroz, “when everyone’s excited about new media, we need to do everything we can to make older media as exciting as possible.”

The reason these innovations cannot do more is that they, in essence, transform the medium of print into an object. They don’t enhance the communication potential of a magazine; rather, they give you reasons to possess it as a physical thing. It wouldn’t surprise me if, a hundred years from now, issues of Esquire appear alongside stereopticons and wind-up toys on a version of Antiques Roadshow.

I’m all for magazines playing with such gimmicks. But let’s be clear. True innovations they’re not.

Apple’s iPad May Help Save Publishing, But Not This Way

John Bethune — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:46:47 +0000

Of all the publishing-industry reactions to the debut of Apple’s iPad so far, the strangest may be a suggestion that the iPad and other e-readers will allow magazines to give up the Web. In a brief blog post on Folio: today, Donald Seckler proposes that as e-readers soar in popularity, they will offer an attractive alternative to the Web. Rather than give away content free on your Web site, he says, offer it only on e-readers. And of course, charge a bundle for it. Print-publishing saved, case closed.

Seckler’s post appears to arise from a traditionalist print-publisher view of the Internet as a refuge for thieves and brigands, who “easily grab and reuse your content.” So the obvious solution is to “take away the free content” on the Web and make sure that “there is only one place for people to turn for your brand’s expert content.”

Seckler doesn’t share his views without trepidation. “I know that sounds a little crazy,” he says. “OK, a lot crazy.”

No, Donald, not crazy. Just dumb. A lot dumb.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, let’s quickly review a few key precepts of the new-media reality:

1. The economics of scarcity no longer applies to publishing. Before the Internet, when it cost a bundle to print and distribute information, publishers could control access to that information. But as Kevin Kelly has observed, “plenitude, not scarcity, governs the network economy.” Attempts to create an artificial scarcity by limiting distribution, locking down content with DRM, or erecting pay walls simply won’t work. This leads to point 2.

2. The reader, not the publisher, is in control. When you have lots of choices for where to find content, you’re in the driver’s seat, not the content producer. Jeff Jarvis puts it this way:

The days of doing business by telling customers what they cannot do are nearing an end. If your customers want to watch your shows, listen to your songs, read your news, or play your games, can you still get away with telling them they cannot unless they come to you and use your devices, pay your fees, and follow your rules? That could work in a scarcity economy in which you owned all the stuff and the means to get it. But no more. Business isn’t about control any more.

3. Consumers demand content when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it. When the readers are in control, publishers make money by giving them what they want, not by trying to limit their choices. Many readers will want to read their magazines on the iPad, and publishers should offer that choice. But the same readers, at other times and in other circumstances, may also want to access the same content on the Web or in print. Publishers who want to survive will give them those options as well.

In support of his argument, Seckler says that “Apple has already shown with music and apps that people will pay for content they want.” But the iPod and iTunes didn’t succeed by limiting availability or attempting to create scarcity. They succeeded by offering a convenient option for downloading and playing music. Every song on iTunes is available for free somewhere else, legally or not. But users prefer the greater convenience and ease of Apple’s system, and are willing to pay for it.

Products like the iPad will give magazine publishers and readers an exciting and valuable new way to experience magazine content, one many readers will gladly pay for. But it should be another way, not the only way. The salvation of the magazine business won’t lie in rejecting one medium of distribution in favor of another, but in embracing them all.

Prediction: Apple’s Tablet Will Change Publishing

John Bethune — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:50:04 +0000

Ihnatko: Apple tablet will spark digital publishing revolution

Of all the predictions for 2010 I’ve read—or hope to read (Paul Conley, how about B2B predictions as lullaby lyrics?)—the one that has me most excited is that Apple will come out with a tablet computer. This isn’t just because I’m a serious technophile, but also because an Apple tablet will have the potential to remake magazine publishing.Until earlier this week, I entertained only idle thoughts about Apple’s rumored tablet in development, mostly when experiencing one frustration or another with my Kindle. But after hearing tech journalist Andy Ihnatko talk about the tablet on the Macbreak Weekly podcast yesterday, I’m persuaded not only that the “iPad” is real, but also that it will be revolutionary.

Ihnatko was responding to news reports that an Oppenheimer analyst expects a March or April launch of the tablet and that it will squarely target the Kindle.

While Ihnatko doubted that Apple’s tablet would “own the e-book marketplace,” he did agree that the device would transform it. “The amount of excitement that it’s going to generate just for e-publishing in general is already phenomenal.” As he noted in his Chicago Sun-Times article last week on a rival tablet computer, the erstwhile “CrunchPad,” computer makers are all preparing for “what happens after Apple releases the Tablet.” He compared their state of mind to that in a year before a world war: “No, it hasn’t been announced, it hasn’t been scheduled, but everybody’s anticipating that the world will be fundamentally different this time next year. They are making arrangements to make sure they are in the best position to survive and thrive in that new landscape.”

Likewise, publishers are making plans “for how they’re going to deal with the fact that there are going to be these really cool, inexpensive color touchscreen tablets to publish things onto.” Next year, he continued, will be “one of the most exciting years in technology, period. I think we’ll look back . . . and say that’s one of those years where everything changed after that.”

Ihnatko bases his expectations for Apple’s tablet on both its likely technology and the probable distribution model Apple will follow.

Most predictions for the tablet foresee, as he puts it in his Sun-Times article, “a color tablet with a large screen, a great video chipset, and a multitouch interface.” These, of course, are precisely the capabilities assumed by Hearst’s Skiff project, the Sports Illustrated concept demo, and the digital magazine consortium. It will be, he said, “a phenomenally cool device, but it’s also going to create the environment in which every single magazine, newspaper, and book publisher is going to be that much more compelled to say ‘we’re going to have a comprehensive digital publishing plan.’ . . . It will create the environment in which everyone starts thinking about publishing everything digitally now.”

Sports Illustrated Tablet Demo from Jared Cocken on Vimeo.

But just as important as technology is the distribution opportunity Apple would offer. It would presumably use iTunes or a similar platform, and charge considerably less than Kindle for nonexclusive distribution of paid content. The potential for a revolution in magazine distribution like the one Apple sparked in music is clear. And in contrast to the proprietary and limiting format that music companies initially forced on iTunes, the speculation is that Apple—and more importantly, publishers—will welcome the ePub standard. (Here’s how Ihnatko describes the format in his Sun Times article: “It is an ambitiously flexible ebook format that can act as a standard ‘wrapper’ for just about any type of content you’ve got going. It’s just as good for unlocked public-domain books as it is for current best-sellers controlled by DRM, and ePub can conceivably even support aggressive multimedia, such as interactive audio and video.”)

How would this distribution model work for the predominantly controlled-circulation (i.e., free) magazines from trade publishers? Probably just fine. Since the ePub is an open standard, digital publications could be distributed by a variety of methods for all kinds of devices, not just Apple’s. And if Apple follows the iTunes model of distributing free content like podcasts, it should happily host digital trade pubs. In addition, according to Electronista, Apple would not “preclude advertising, which to date hasn’t been allowed for the Kindle even with magazines and newspapers.”

Before we get too excited about this scenario, it’s important to remember that the Apple tablet rumor is still just that—a rumor. The iPad may never see the light of day. But the signs that it will are increasingly credible, and sufficient to make me believe that 2010 will be a very interesting year indeed.

UPDATE: A couple of items I missed before hitting the publish button: 1. Rex Hammock’s persuasive rant that the iPad (not the “tablet,” blockhead!) should not be reduced to a mere tool for “reading content presented via a magazine-metaphor interface.” Fair point. But I still want to read on it! 2. A New York Times article pointed out by Hammock about magazine publishers preparing to publish on those cringe-inducing tablets. Both worth reading.

Should B2B Get Excited about the Digital Magazine Consortium?

John Bethune — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:31:57 +0000

For B2B publishers, how big a deal is the recently announced digital magazine consortium? Does the participation of industry titans Condé Nast, Time Inc., Hearst, Meredith, and News Corp., mean our magazines will all soon be read on cool e-reader tablets? Or is it just more hot air?

For me, the answers to these questions came from an unexpected source. Regular readers of B2B Memes will know that I have mixed feelings about digital magazines. Likewise, my feelings are mixed about the one blog on the subject that I follow, from digital magazine producer Nxtbook Media. Like many corporate blogs, it’s a mix of lightweight stories about company activities, tales of customer success, and criticisms of anyone that doesn’t like their product. Last week, though, I remembered why I follow it: Sometimes it offers some excellent insights.

It’s unfortunate that the PR bulldog instinct came over the author, Marcus Grimm, in headlining last week’s post “Lies, Half-Truths and Other Innuendos About Digital Magazines.” The inflammatory choice of words made me suspect it would be a hack job, but in fact it was a well-reasoned and sensible discussion of the consortium’s effort. (I suppose it’s too late now, but why not use a key phrase from the post as the title: “Top Five Things You Need to Know About the Forthcoming Digital Magazine Consortium”?)

If you’re interested in the topic, you should read the entire post. But here I will cite three key points Grimm makes in casting doubt on the relevance of the consortium.

First, as Grimm notes, “there’s no reason to believe this will be a solution for trade publishers.” The consortium is all about charging for content, not growing an audience. Hence, he says, “if you’re interested in the latter, there’s nothing here to indicate a better future for you, or even a different future.”

Second, he argues against the strategy of producing a dedicated device for digital magazines: “We DON’T agree that you should make readers choose a format. Instead, let them choose the content and have the format adapt to the device [they’re] on.”

Third, he points out the silliness of the magazine industry trying to build a tablet: “The fact that the consortium is working on an eReader device is further proof to me that they don’t fully get what industry they’re in. Hint: it’s not hardware.”

Now, I suppose there may be some behind-the-scenes politics or unspoken resentments at work here I don’t know about, and as a Nxtbook employee, Grimm is certainly not an objective observer. But he’s persuaded me that the consortium is not likely to hit a home run.

Personally, I hope someone is successful at forging a viable, widely-accepted approach to porting digital versions of B2B magazines to portable readers. For me, no matter how cool the technology, digital magazines on a computer just don’t cut it. But put them on my Kindle, add some color and better performance to the device, and I could be sold on digital magazines at last.

B2B Posts of the Week: The Fate of Print, FTC, and Video

John Bethune — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:36:47 +0000

This week saw more discussion of the future of trade publications, helpful guidance on the FTC blogging guidelines, and a tale of two videos.

Reports of Death Exaggerated: “How Trade Publications Can Capitalize on Content Marketing and Social Media,” Tom Pick, The WebMarket Central Blog, 11/18/09.

Following up on his trenchant summary last week of the ills afflicting trade publications, this Wednesday Tom Pick took a shot at improving their prognosis. Many trade publishers might find his recommendations either obvious (use marketers as authors, conduct research, and hold events) or unrealistic (publish ratings of products). As for his suggestion that trade pubs convert from controlled to paid circulation . . . well, did I mention that paid circ sucks? It’s important that a B2B thought leader like Pick believes that trade publications can “continue to have a central place in the dissemination of industry-specific content.” But if that’s going to happen, we may want to look elsewhere for strategies.

On the Other Hand. . . : “Why brands need to own their content channels,” Gordon Plutsky, iMedia Connection, 11/17/09.

As Pick noted in his article, Gordon Plutsky is one of those who see little value in trade-pub advertising—not surprising for the marketing director of a custom media company, King Fish Media. Plutsky argues that “the vast majority of marketers feel that the content they create is of equal or more value to the information produced by traditional media brands.” I’m not sure who should be more embarrassed by this claim—the marketers or the publishers. But the marketers probably do feel that way, and that’s not good news for publishers.

Relax, Everybody! “Once More, with Feeling: FTC guidelines, bloggers and companies,” Susan Getgood, Marketing Roadmaps, 11/16/09.

As I wrote last month, the new FTC guidelines for bloggers may not be very helpful, but neither are they a disaster. The guidelines simply don’t justify all the sturm und drang. So Susan Getgood’s calm and rational approach to the subject is most welcome, as is her suggestion “that we stop worrying about the semantics of bloggers versus journalists.”

Passionate about Pink: “What Inbound Marketers and Microsoft Can Learn From St. Vincent Hospital’s ‘Pink Glove Dance’ Video,” Shannon Sweetser, Hubspot, 11/20/09.

Shannon Sweetser has highlighted in this post two videos that got people talking this week, though for different reasons. One showed Microsoft store staffers breaking out into dance in a fairly unconvincing attempt at spontaneity. The other, featuring employees of a hospital donning pink gloves and dancing in support of breast cancer awareness, was a study in pure joy. Though the comparison is a bit unfair to Microsoft (but, come on, who cares?), Sweetser does a good job extracting useful lessons for marketers and publishers alike.

B2B Blog Posts of the Week

John Bethune — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:50:26 +0000

Every Friday, beginning today, B2B Memes will feature notable posts of the week from around the B2B blogosphere. The picks are strictly my own (though suggestions are welcome) and reflect my particular interests in and perspective on trends in B2B media.

The Death of Print: “Will Content Marketing Kill Trade Publications?” Tom Pick, The WebMarket Central Blog, 11/9/09.

Clearly the meme-maker of the week, Tom Pick did an impressive job of summarizing how the rise of social media tends to favor content marketing over trade publishing. Though his perspective is that of a marketer, he has a clear-eyed and accurate understanding of how trade publishing works.

Updating Middle-Aged Media: “Are Your PDFs Social Media Friendly?” Galen De Young, B2B Marketing Blog, 11/11/09.

As noted elsewhere in B2B Memes, there is a whole class of “middle-aged media” like e-mail and webinars that can benefit from integration with newer social-media tools. De Young offers some simple but powerful tips for bringing PDFs into the 21st century.

Good Surveys: “3 B2B Social Media Takeaways from the Business.Com Social Media Survey,” Kipp Bodnar, Social Media B2B, 11/12/09.

Anyone involved in B2B media needs to know how B2B companies actually regard and use social media. A new survey from Business.com, as covered by Kipp Bodnar among many others, offers useful new data. As Bodnar suggests, it appears that businesses are still a bit behind on the new-media learning curve.

Bad Surveys: “If ‘advertising’ is your middle name, your surveys will always suggest the solution is …,” Rex Hammock, RexBlog, 11/12/09.

If you’ve ever been amused or irritated by the way surveys commissioned by publishing groups always seem self-serving, particularly when it involves the value of advertising, you’ll appreciate Rex Hammock’s take on a new study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Of course, Hammock has his own axe to grind, but his is a useful reminder always to regard survey results with a skeptical eye.

Face the Social Media Facts: “The 7 Harsh Realities of Social Media Marketing,” Sonia Simone, Copyblogger, 11/13/09.

So much of what we read about B2B social media makes it sound easy and unrelentingly positive. Simone offers a refreshingly and constructively critical take on the challenges to succeeding in the new-media world.

Straight Outta Left Field: “Make Everything Your Own,” Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Robert Green, Huffington Post, 11/13/09.

OK, it’s a little weird to include 50 Cent in a collection of B2B posts, but in the following quote, he and co-author Green underscore the disruptive impact of the Internet on business:

We are living through an entrepreneurial revolution, on a global scale. The old power centers are breaking up. Individuals everywhere want more control over their destiny and have much less respect for an authority that is not based on merit but on mere power. We have all naturally come to question why someone should rule over us, why our source of information should depend on the mainstream media, and on and on. We do not accept what we accepted in the past.

The rise of social media favors the entrepreneur and the individual over the company and the group. Increasingly, B2B means P2P—person to person.