By Kevin Riley

Today, I saw another of those “doom and gloom” videos by one of the “big guru” marketers. The names I have for these bozos are not fit to print (remember, I was once a carpenter and have a rather colourful language – and the worst words pertain to these doomsayers).

Look, nothing annoys me much more (other than a sudden shortage of Irish whiskey at my local liquor store) than hearing these muppets go on about how the Internet as we know it is coming to an end … only to see they are about to plug their new, whizbang $597 membership program that “will solve all your problems”. Excuse me while I stick my finger down my throat.

Major news publications can ask for subscription fees and erect paywalls all they like, but a recent study shows that 80 percent of U.S. adult Internet users are NOT willing to pay a single red cent to read a daily newspaper online.

Recently The New York Times joined a growing list of major daily news publications that require visitors to pay subscription or other fees to access news content. Other prominent news dailies to do so include The Times in the United Kingdom and the Australian Financial Review in Australia.

Reporting its financial results for the first quarter of 2011, Demand Media, Inc. has good and bad news for shareholders. The good news is that revenues have jumped 48 percent compared with those in the first quarter of 2010. The bad news is that the company’s loss has also increased.

Demand Media’s revenues hit $79.5 million in the first quarter of 2011, 48 percent higher than the $53.6 million earned in Q110. The company’s operating loss, however, increased by 31 percent – from $3.2 million in Q110 to $4.2 million in Q111. Its net loss climbed 37 percent – from $4.1 million in the first quarter of last year to $5.6 million in Q111.

Research by Ernst & Young shows that interactive media was the fastest growing sector within the media and entertainment industry in the 2006 to 2010 period. Interactive media companies’ average profitability was 35 percent during the period, with profitability growing by 15 percent.

Traditional media companies, meanwhile, have seen their profitability wither, and their profitability DECREASE over the past four years. Publishers experienced an average 1 percent decline in profitability (based on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization or ‘EBITDA’) in the 2006-2010 time period, whilst television networks’ profitability dropped by 4 percent, and music companies’ profitability dropped by 5 percent.

Instructing people to register a trademark-infringing domain name may be just as unlawful as registering a domain name that infringes someone’s trademark, according to a ruling by U.S. Federal Judge Ricardo Martinez.

Judge Martinez has found in favor of Microsoft in its lawsuit against Internet marketing ‘gurus’ Amish Shah, Jose A. Rivera a.k.a. Jay Styles and their related corporations Digispace Solutions LLC and YMultimedia LLC.

The Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) will run its 35th annual international conference on June 5-7, 2011 at the Capitol Hilton in Washington D.C. There will be five main tracks covering audience generation, sales and marketing, content generation, new revenue streams and managing your business. Guest speakers include Randy Coon, COO of The Motley Fool, and Bill Dugan, Vice President/General Manager of StepByStepMarketing.com. Along with plenty of learning and networking opportunities there will be an early morning walk/run through Washington DC and a wine tasting. An early bird rate is available until May 12, 2011. Visit SIPA 2011 for more information and to register.

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With revenues and profits down substantially in 2010, what will AOL do to turn itself around in 2011? According to the AOL Way, the company’s plan for ‘content, product, media engineering, and revenue management’, it will focus on boosting content production, page views, ad revenues and profits.

Business Insider recently published the leaked AOL Way and, as mentioned in Kikabink News (see Dissecting AOL’s Business Plan, ‘The AOL Way’), we’ll be going through the plan and discussing the key take-outs of interest to Internet marketers in a series of upcoming articles.

If you’re in the business of affiliate marketing or making money from advertising – as many Internet marketers are – you’ll want to take a look at the ‘AOL Way’. The AOL Way reveals AOL’s plans for its content publishing business, and was recently leaked to the Business Insider.

Indeed, thanks to the Business Insider, you can review the entire 58 slide presentation, ‘The AOL Way Content, Product, Media Engineering, and Revenue Management‘ at your leisure.

According to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, Internet publishing and broadcasting revenue grew by 9.8 percent between 2008 and 2009 to reach $19.5 billion.

Over the same period, revenues for newspaper and periodical publishers decreased by 17.3 percent and 13.2 percent respectively, to $36.3 billion and $39.1 billion.

Ed Dale’s Melbourne Challenge Conference will take place on February 25, 26 and 27, 2011 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, in Melbourne, Australia. Aimed at beginning-to-advanced Internet marketers, conference organiser Ed Dale says the event will include presentations from top-notch speakers including SEO expert, Leslie Rohde, super-affiliate Lynn Terry, and copywriting expert and NLP master, Harlan Kilstein. The event is a must-attend for Australian based Internet marketers (normally starved of quality Internet marketing events) and highly recommended for overseas visitors. Just be sure to bring swimwear and sunscreen to get the most out of gorgeous Melbourne in summer! Go here for all the details including how to get tickets.

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