NextGen PRose

Forrester Magazine: Don't Show Me The Money

San Jose Mercury News broke the news on Friday that Forrester is launching a print magazine next month.  Matt Marshall points out how Forrester is joining the company of four other new pubs (actually two new, one revival and one re-vamp)--Tech Confidential from the folks at TheDeal, Tonhy Perkins' AlwaysOn "blogozine," the next generation Red Herring, and MIT Technology Review.  He poses a good question in light of grassroots journalism and Internet publishing advances: Can these new tech mags survive?

Forrester Magazine's goal isn't to make money. Rather, it's to build the brand of Forrester, which provides research on business and technology issues. It won't carry advertising and will start with three issues per year....The company's research found that the more senior the executive, the less time they spent reading online, Kardon says. Thus the decision to go print-only. It will be more of a business magazine than a technology magazine....Forrester Magazine will be sent only to executives of companies that pay around $30,000 a year for Forrester Research.

Some branding move.  Sounds pretty exclusive to me.:)  Forrester analyst and blogger, Charlene Li, provides further insight defending the multi-channel branding approach.