Chalk up the loss of 200 jobs at CMP Media to the Internet. CMP has been at the center of publishing information about IT and Tech in print and online. In 1999 United Business Media of England spent over a billion dollars to purchase CMP. I wrote a seminal piece in Business 2.0 magazine in the September 26th 2000 issue about the death of trade tech magazines and how the CMP deal would be a bummer for UBM (and also mentioned that the Willis Stein Partners $800 million purchase of Ziff Davis would be similarly impacted). I also followed up this prediction in this blog in 2004 (note links in referenced blogs to the September 26th issue of Business 2.0 no longer link to the article in question.)

Fast forward. CMP pretty much gutted its magazine business based on published news. CMP also awoke to the realities of the past few years that tech news is best delivered online.

Interestingly Ziff Davis (mentioned above) is rumored to be sold this week for a pittance of what Willis Stein paid for it in 2000. The acquirer (I believe it is a New York City based private equity firm) will be buying some solid online properties but will probably one day go into shock for also buying several print tech magazines that have seen their better days.

And while on the topic of print tech magazines. TechTarget which went public a few weeks ago has terrific online numbers. However their tech magazines are not winners and I would not be surprised if they do not dump these titles within a year or so. Interestingly magazines represented about $12 million of some $80 million of TechTarget's annual revenue.

To the 200 CMP employees that will unfortunately be terminated, please let us know your skill sets as we have lots of employment opportunities at Jupitermedia. We are always looking for solid sales people and good writers.