“The 404 Debate”A Study in Online Breaking News

David KatzDeputy Editor, CFO.com

To view this presentation online: www.cfo.com/ONA

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Overview of CFO.com

• CFO.com is a 6-year old offshoot of CFO magazine. Both are owned by The Economist Group.

• Editorial staff of seven (including Web producer)• 1.1 million pageviews/month• 464K visits/month• 270K uniques/month• Publish 4-10 news stories per day, plus 5-7 short

features and 5-10 commentary items (blogs) per week.

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Brief History of CFO.com

• October 2000: Economist Group re-launches CFOnet.com as CFO.com, an independent unit with separate publisher and extensive resources.

• August 2001: Site resources reduced, CFO.com placed under same publisher as CFO magazine.

• 2001-2005: Figuring out our mission—from “doing it all” to monthly features (little news) to shorter weekly/biweekly features.

• Today: Daily news, breaking news, and second-and third-day lead stories. Model continues to evolve as new resources flow back to online.

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Lessons Learned

• Webcasts a powerful new reporting tool.• Breaking news a perfect fit for Web sites. • Convergence/integration with magazine works

best when the missions are the same, but the editorial products are different.

• Whatever the edit model, management must buy-in to it and believe in it. Achieving a coherent vision has been difficult.

• Rising profitability of Web remarkably effective at gaining management’s attention and buy-in.