In an effort to reduce cost, the Washington Post recently made the decision to eliminate its business section. I must admit that I didn’t think this was a big deal until I received a note from Bisnow.com, a free Washington DC digital (e-mail) publication. The note stated that Bisnow is going to begin providing Business Section coverage through a new digital publication: Daily Bisnow! Did you catch that, a three year old digital publication is beating out an industry leader (the Washington Post)!
What Happened
Bisnow is part of the future, where information is free and value is created by giving away what you know. Who wants to pay for a newspaper when the information can be accessed instantly and deciphered whenever and however you want it? This business model allows companies to thrive by giving information away rather than charging for it. In turn the captive audience becomes a magnet for companies that can benefit from advertising. (If you don’t believe me think about how much you didn’t pay to search Google this past month.)
Are you ready?
What about your business? Most probably you can’t go to the extreme of giving away everything, but what about helping others and by doing so building strong relationships. You can choose to hold your contacts, information, and resources close, or you can choose to open your resources as a path to help others succeed. In doing so, you likewise will find yourself achieving your personal goals.
Here is the note I received from Bisnow:
We are saddened by the demise of the separate Washington Post business section. It’s a great newspaper, and many of us continue to subscribe.
But we think business news is too important, especially today, to relegate to inside pages.
We want to try to do something about it.
Starting this week, we’re launching a Daily Bisnow (Washington). Although we’re excited to have become the best read local business publication, this new e-mail will be about both national and local business.
Of course, we’ll do it in our style:
- Free
- Fun
- All-electronic
- Lots of pictures
- Lots of personalities
- Mercifully short
So that your Inbox is not clogged, we’re going to pull back on the frequency of our other publications. Also, we’ll publish Daily Bisnow in the morning, and reserve the afternoon for our more specialized publications: Legal, Tech, Trade Association, Medical, Commercial Real Estate, and The Scene.
We are now 16 employees, but still small enough to care about each reader. If you have comments about our new publication, pro or con, write our publisher directly: Mark@Bisnow.com. He doesn’t have an unlisted number, at least yet.
Or come visit our office on Connecticut Ave. and play ping pong with us.
cofebuz 
I’m afraid this could be only the beginning of a slow demise of newspapers in general. It’s just way too quick and easy to get news on the internet. Could we be moving toward a newspaperless world? Perhaps
Great example of a controversial topic that seems to be transforming the world of journalism. As with other industries that have been transformed by the availability of low cost (for example photography) or free content - professional journalism will need to “change or die”. One interesting aside is the accuracy of reported information from free sources. Journalists are trained to speak in an unbiased voice and collaborate sources - of course this does not always happen but it is a professional standard to strive for and an ethical code. On the other hand bloggers are encouraged to choose a side and write with emotion and the Internet is rife with rumor and hearsay. On the other hand there are great examples in the book Crowdsourcing of how work performed by amateurs is more efficient and of superior quality than equivalent work performed by “professionals”. It will be interesting to see how things play out.
I must say that I’m not surprised to hear about the WashPost business section. The next step will be to ensure that mobile phones can access and interface seamlessly with the digital media that’s out there (CNN, NYTimes and Washpost have mobile-friendly sites). Businesses will do well to take note and design their websites accordingly…
On another note, I agree with the comment of helping others. More and more, business owners have the capacity to reach millions via Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and other forms of ‘vertical’ media. A simple act like sharing an informative article or valuable information can do well to increase and enhance business relationships - it’s certainly working for me.
And thank you for sharing!
LAF
Can Entertainment and News sections be far behind? This is just the “handwriting-on-the-wall.”
In the past several months, I’ve seen news articles on the web only to re-read them 18-24 hours later in the NYTimes.
After all, isn’t the TV News Media relying on Twitter, Facebook and other electronic media for their features and updates? They don’t seem to realize that everytime they quote an on-line news source, they’re reinforcing the view that they’re rapidly becoming obsolete.
So much for the “talking-heads!”