Ad Age: Trade Publishers Warned of Google's Impact on Magazines

B-to-B magazine publishers are the latest group to see threat from the Google giant. At the recent annual American Business Media conference, IDG CEO Pat Kenealy advised attendees that Google should be considered a real threat to their business model citing Google's popular and growing contextual advertising programs. Business-to-business trade magazines and even highly-targeted consumer publications may face extirpation, much as the high-priced trade newsletter did once the Internet got going. One conference attendee put it bluntly, "If Google can slice and dice [information] and give highly qualified users to very targeted advertisers, then what do you need a trade publication for?"