Monday Note

TweetIt sounds like the perfect oxymoron: Isn’t cost-cutting the enemy of creativity? True if your main cutting instrument is Excel, one that works pretty well for near-sighted managers.  First, rip questionable positions (some are always to be found) and, presto, your P&L looks healthier. Next, human resources problems: summon the victims, hand the letter, follow [...]

TweetWarning: religious debate here. Should a news web site be open or closed, free or paid-for? There is no simple answer, of course, as hybrid models are a likely part of our future. But, first, let’s review the paid-for model I addressed in previous issues of the Monday Note as well as in the French [...]

TweetGuess: which tool all of us use everyday was invented in the United States in 1947? The mobile telephone. A year later, a wireless telephone service became available in almost 100 cities and highway corridors. Most early adopters were truck drivers. Now, there are about 3.5 billion cellphones in service across the world, thanks to [...]

TweetThis week, back to basics. Forget about complex financial ratios, Ebitda, KPI, even costs. Let’s consider one simple element: for our news businesses, how much are they actually making in revenues, and how do they compare?  Let’s go the way of the cell carrier, let’s use one credible metric, the ARPU (Average Revenue per User): [...]

TweetDear RSS readers, this is the second notification that our feed is moving to feedburner. The new address is: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/monday-note Take the time to update your RSS readers, as the other feed will expire at the end of the month. —FF