Tech Town, NC

With the news this week that Business 2.0 may be shutting its doors after the September issue the tech community is starting to feel for the fortunes of the old guard of Print Publishers (Yes, in the tech community a 7 year old publication counts as the “old guard”). In these heady days of a resurgent tech sector it takes something close to home to make us realize that, while it’s fun to blow up existing business models and try to get rich doing so, there are consequences that matter.

In this case the consequences matter not only to the 623,000 or so paying subscribers to Business 2.0 (of which I am one), but also to the publishers, journalists, and, yes, Google. It’s telling that only days after the Business 2.0 announcement, Google announced that they are expanding their print ad network to include 225 newspapers in the United States. The fact is that much of the revenue newspapers have lost is due to the effectiveness of Google Adsense and Adsense type systems. Newspapers agreeing to give Google a piece of their ad revenues is like writing your executioner into your will. This is truly a show of desperation and confusion in the industry, but you can’t blame them for trying.