The Wall Street Journal and other organizations had stories yesterday about Time Warner's decision to emphasize certain magazine brands online to the detriment of the Time magazine brand. Web sites such as Money.com and Fortune.com will be "pushed" going forward.

Let me give you some personal history related to this change. In the mid-1990s I was known somewhat as an Internet visionary (back then, it was easier to be a visionary than it is today because there were so few people who knew much about the Internet). At the time I was CEO of Mecklermedia. We were public. We were one of the few public Internet companies. Therefore I was in "demand" as a speaker at public forums about the Internet and within the media industry.

One these speaking engagements ended up in my meeting strategists from the Time Warner magazine group. We had several meetings. I told them that their strategy with Pathfinder (the Time Warner attempt to create a powerful portal position) was a huge mistake and that they had a fabulous opportunity to be dominant in various vertical subject areas by using their magazine brands as magnets. I urged that they drop Pathfinder and build a great "money" site, a great "business" site as well as a great "sports" site, etc. using respectively Money, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.

Alas my suggestions were not followed. I think the people I met with liked my ideas but upper management shot down the strategy. Time Warner leaders had dreams of being competitive with AOL, Compuserve, Yahoo and others using the rather odd Pathfinder model. Interestingly two of the gentlemen I met with have big positions these days at Time Warner. I would bet they were instrumental in getting Time Warner to do something they should have done 10 years ago.