Spotted a nice story by Colin Crawford at his blog Colin's Corner, about IDG's move from being a print publisher to embracing the digital media - including mobile (he kindly links to our 7th Mass Media blog posting). Colin explains about IDG's exection into digital using the example of their publication Infoworld:

"There's a lot to this story but one of the most important issues is that by being unburdened by print allowed the team at Infoworld the opportunity to focus on the changing needs of their customers and to develop online , event and mobile products. It's changed the culture of that brand. The philosophy of listening to customers and really understanding your marketplace has been installed in the organization."

But the personally most pleasing part was to read what IDG now use to train their internal staff. Colin writes:

Next is mobile. While, mobile marketing initiatives are still modest and the consumption of mobile content is still in its infancy, things are going to change rapidly over the next several years. I subscribe to the belief that we're seeing the dawn of a new mass media. The mobile opportunities and the move to the 7th Mass Media are well articulated by Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore. While the monoculture of South Korea is much different to Western cultures, they are at the epicenter of the convergence of the Internet, Telecommunications and Broadcast TV. Not everything that works within the South Korean culture will necessarily translate but publishers around the world ignore the rapid developments in this country at their peril. To get a glimpse of the digital culture of South Korea read Digital Korea I handed out a copy to all the students at our internal training course last week.

Thank you very much Colin (also on behalf of my co-author Jim O'Reilly and our publisher Futuretext) !! Good luck to all at IDG on the journey to the digital media age and a warm welcome to the 7th Mass Media landscape. Let us know when IDG launches initiatives into this space, I am sure you have lots of talent eager to explore this brave new world.

Original Source: Communities Dominate Brands