Who doesn't like swag? In the past, we've only gotten these exhibitor and vendor gifts mostly at conferences and trade shows we attend. But, of course, that's now gone away.   Or has it?   Subscription boxes are the latest publishing trend. FIPP, the international trade group, just did a whole special report on them, complete with case studies. Basically, publishers send subscribers and would-be subscribers physical boxes of cool items. Yes, it's mostly been consumer up to this point, but it doesn't really have to be.   The idea has proven an effective one for our homebound times. A month ago, I wrote about a new online show called The Present starring magician Heider Guimaraes, where ticket holders are mailed a box with surprise contents that they are directed not to open until their Zoom show starts.   "How do you reach out of the computer and into the audience?" asked Matt Shakman, artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in ...

I was listening to an interview Sunday of Luis von Ahn, CEO and founder of Duolingo, the language-learning company. He said that when asked by his investors about charging people for the service, he would not waver. "We're never going to charge people."   But he knew that he would have to figure out ways to monetize it—the popular app is now valued at $1.5 billion—he told NPR's Guy Raz on How I Built This.   "We were very precious about this," von Ahn, who is from Guatemala, said. "We cared a lot about the user experience for Duolingo. And first of all, we thought, 'We're never going to put ads in here.' But we had a year of turmoil, and we needed to figure out how we were going to make this sustainable. At some point, enough [employees] got convinced, 'Okay we'll put an ad at the end of every lesson.' Fortunately, that gave us quite a bit of money [$10 million annually—they use Goog ...

Informa has become an 800-pound gorilla in the business information space, thanks in large part to a two step-strategic plan. Part one was the Growth & Acceleration, in effect from 2014 to 2017, that saw the expansion of Informa through both organic growth and acquisition, including the $1.56 billion purchase of Penton in the U.S. and nearly $6 billion acquisition of UBM in June 2018. Overall reported revenue for 2018 jumped 34.9 percent to about $3 billion, with acquisitions and disposals contributing 35.4% growth (primarily due to the acquisition of UBM). 

For all the talk of digital transformation, the real transition for many B2B publishers was becoming events companies with media rather than media companies with events. Events typically offered better margins (especially attractive to PE-owners looking to boost revenue then flip for a tidy profit) and didn’t require the headaches of building infrastructure and new skills that digital demanded.

The 2017 Business Information Network report looks a little different this year, with significantly larger overall revenue estimates for the B2B media and information category as a whole and for the Data and Paid Content category in particular. Working with our partner Outsell, we’ve recast the Data and Paid Content category to expand beyond just B2B media publishers to be more representative of the greater paid content universe that Connectiv now represents (including companies such as Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg BNA, Reed Tech, Lexis Nexis and more). For the BIN report, Outsell is tracking a number of verticals including Commercial Information, Credit & Finance, Legal, Science Technology & Healthcare and Human Capital Management.

A slow start turned into a flat finish for the B2B Media and Information industry in 2016, with normal stalwarts such as events and digital advertising showing some weakness. Overall revenue grew less than a percentage point to $28.49 billion, up from $28.27 billion in 2015. According to upcoming Connectiv Operating Cost Report, 47.8 percent of respondents said that gross revenue was higher in 2016 than 2015, while 52.2 percent said it was lower (of that same group, 91.3 percent say they’re forecasting higher gross revenue in 2017 than 2016).

The BIN report combines data from several sources. Event revenue is supplied by CEIR; print advertising data is provided by publishing service bureau IMS. Data on B2B digital advertising is estimated by ABM based on information provided by the IAB and the data component of the BIN report is provided by Outsell, supplemented by publicly available data and ABM estimates.