While the news industry comes crashing down there are daily examples of new money to be made in the information industry, simply by reading (drum roll of irony here) the news! Two recent articles, one in the SF Chronicle, and the other in the Wall Street Journal, point to new business information opportunities for publishers and providers to take stock of. The US government isn’t going to do either of these well. Heck, the current administration is up to its eyeballs in alligators over health reform but ironically won’t create standards for and measure medical errors. Hmmm.  And there is no chance that standard ratings for international airlines are going to get any attention while Uncle Sam is trying to solve its own intelligence failures focused on passengers who fly on said airlines.

So this leaves good old ingenuity up to the likes of Hearst Business, Vendome Group, Ascend or McGraw-Hill Aviation Group to come up with some good reliable trusted information that it can serve-up and sell. The industry needs new money and the news continues to point to it.  Any takers?

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The week and year started off with a bang with Gartner buying Burton and Dow Jones merging two major divisions indicative of two major trends we discussed in our Outlook 2010 – thinking platforms vs. products and more consolidation at the top.  Across and within companies things are being combined everywhere as the combination of technology and the economy accelerate our industry’s moves from product-centric to market-centric. Just yesterday I spoke to one CEO who took over 100 brands and migrated them into 9.

When looking at a user or a market and working backwards to what they need to make decisions, the containers and titles become a barrier. The smartphones, readers and tablets are only going to accelerate this, so look for more change ahead. My mother used to say the only thing that is constant is change. Take good enough, the realities of all our pricing and advertising and information spending research, the notion our recession is not going to be a “V” and “recovery” continues to be jobless and you’re going to see more acquisitions and more integrations.

The result – inside each industry segment and in most companies there are the 2 or 3 gorillas and the chimps – –the big sized firms and all the little ones OR the divisions that make all the money and ‘the other ones.’   The more things change the more they stay the same. Look for more of this same – in 2010.   And we’re off – happy New Year!

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I’m back after a few weeks off and probably broke every blog rule in the book but sometimes you just have to stop writing and tend to the home front.  My focus: money and marketing in the information industry this year and I’m also going to sprinkle in more observations about industry companies that we think are doing things right—delivering phenomenal experiences in our era of a new day, new dawn and new decade. We see this as the path to success and growth in 2010 so expect to hear more here on our 30 to watch and other exciting firms who are going to stake a place in the race for next year’s selection.

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