TechRepublic closes their print business
October 30, 2006I ran into an FC (Former CNET’er) during lunch. He had just met with a client, and I was walking over to Fourth Street Live to grab a bite. Chatted for a few minutes and he mentioned that our former employer was closing the TechRepublic print business.
It was inevitable, they’ve been steadily slicing costs (read: laying off people) in that division for the past couple years. They’d been hoping that by reducing direct costs, and sharing the cost of producing content with the site itself, that they’d be able to make a decent return on the business. But really given that everything else they do is about delivering content on the Web it didn’t make sense to be spending resources on a group devoted to delivering content on printed paper material. And they’re not really spending much on site content either, so much of it relies now on blogs and other user-generated content. So I doubt they could sustain a reasonable print business fed from the site content.
My understanding is that the print business was down to just three people anyway, so all three have been laid off. I’m sure they all had seen the writing on the wall, and it’s probably something of a relief. Apparently there will be an orderly shutdown, over the next couple months.
In a way I think they should have bitten the bullet and shut it down a few months ago. Would have saved themselves the cost and effort of translating that portion of their site into the new layout they launched earlier this month. But you know managers–they probably didn’t think that far ahead, to how much effort they’d have to spend re-working the pages only to be shutting it down a couple months later.
It’s kindof sad, but I think it is for the best. The tech book business has been absolutely decimated by the ready availability of code, hints, and tips on the Web. It’s a smart move to get out of the business, though again I think they probably should have done it a while ago.