BtoB Media Business - June 2008 - (Page 25)

People On the Move McCracken leaves ‘PC World’ to start tech venture PC World Editor in Chief Harry McCracken left the IDG magazine last week to start his own venture, according to a PC World Techlog blog post by McCracken. After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided to step down as editor in chief and launch a technology site of my own—one that I’ll build from scratch and launch this summer,” he wrote in the blog post. McCracken will continue as a contributing editor. PROFILE ‘NRN’s’ Larranaga to focus on Web 2.0, events expansion BY CHRISTOPHER HOSFORD PEOPLE A Arden C. Crain KC Crain Kaplan Crain Communications announces VPs At its annual meeting, the board of Crain Communications Inc. approved the promotions of four executives to the VP positiion. The following appointments were announced: Allison Arden to VPpublisher and Christopher Crain to VP-associate publisher, both at Advertising Age; KC Crain to VP-publisher, AutoWeek; and Jill Kaplan to VP-publisher, Crain’s New York Business. Crain Communications publishes Media Business andBtoB. Vance Publishing names Denison VP-e-media Vance Publishing Corp. has named Thomas S. Denison as its new VP-e-media. Denison formerly served as business development director at Omnicom Group’s Agency.com. In his new role, he will oversee the expansion of Vance’s e-media operations, addition to the kinds of product marketing fter only five months on the job, Tom and ratings you see on sites like Amazon. It Larranaga, named in January as pub- has the potential to be a real game-changer.” NRN hasn’t been a slouch with events. Its lisher of Nation’s Restaurant News, has big plans to enhance the foodservice media annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators Conference is 50 years old, and it leader. Already a must-read Tom already stages a foodservice for restaurant operators, rangLarranaga technology expo as well as a ing from the biggest chains Company: half-dozen custom events per down to the mom-and-pop Nation’s Restauyear and the usual lineup of corner diners, NRN’s future rant News, a awards programs. But Larunder Larranaga’s guidance publication of ranaga wants to extend will include a greater push Lebhar-Friedman Inc. NRN’s face-to-face activities into expos and events, selec- Location: New York with new, home-grown tive acquisitions and Web 2.0 Title: Publisher shows as well as through secommunity-building, among Big move: An emphasis on Web 2.0 social media, and an lect acquisitions. He’s already other initiatives. expansion of NRN’s events launched a new distance “It’s for both branding calendar learning product aimed at and lead generation,” Lar- Five-year plan: Enhance multiunit restaurant manranaga said. “Ultimately, we sales force infrastructure, want to build our communi- launch or revitalize key events. agers called Multi-U. “We just have to focus on ty. Getting the interaction is and grow digital portfolio events more as a core business the first step. We hope to leverage that into lead development and a con- rather than ancillary to our flagship magazine,” Larranaga said. “Not to diminish the value of crete value proposition for NRN.” In addition to its weekly newspaper, NRN branding that events give us, but I also see them already generates 12 different e-newsletters as a big profit center.” To beef up the staff, he has already brought that augment its NRN.com online presence. Larranaga—who succeeded Alan Gould, aboard a new national sales director, Chris KeatNRN’s publisher for 14 years—also wants to ing, a veteran publishing director, from CMP revisit the viability of a digital edition. He has Media; and he plans to add a new executive diintroduced a new online recruitment site rector of marketing and a director of events. Larranaga himself is a veteran of b-to-b me(NRNJobPlate.com), and eyes a soon-to-belaunched sourcing engine for the foodservice dia. He joined Lebhar-Friedman in 2006 as industry. Larranaga’s name for it: Any- NRN’s associate publisher and national sales manager. Previously he served six years with thing4Restaurants.com. “With menu labeling, nutritional require- Advanstar as a group publisher of its pharmaments and a focus on green products and sus- ceuticals books (BioPHARM International, tainability today, there’s no place where Pharmaceutical Executive and Pharmaceutical restaurateurs currently can go to find prod- Representative), and before that held publisher ucts based on a multitude of filters,” he said. and sales positions with Bill Communications “Anything4Restaurants will provide that in and Miller Freeman. including creating more social networks within the company’s customer groupings. TechWeb hires Sweeney to lead Internet Evolution TechWeb announced that Terry Sweeney has rejoined the company as editor in chief of Internet Evolution, a Web 2.0 site dedicated to investigating the future of the Internet. In the newly created position, Sweeney will be responsible for the management of Internet Evolution’s broad-band video documentaries and interviews; investigative reports; ThinkerNet blogosphere; and user-generated content. He was formerly editor in chief of Byte & Switch and was founding editor of the IT security Web site Dark Reading and Storage Pipeline. mediabusinessonline.com | June 2008 | Media Business | 25 http://NRN.com http://www.nrnjobplate.com http://www.anything4Restaurants.com http://www.anything4Restaurants.com http://Agency.com http://mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - June 2008

BtoB Media Business - June 2008
Contents
Upfront
Cover Story
Feature
Sales & Marketing
M&A
Events
Circulation
Production
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - June 2008