More evolution of IT media

I'm stuck in Newark (what a surprise) traveling back from setting another client on course with social media.  So, while catching up on e-mail I could not help but notice a couple of updates about changes with the media and was struck by the juxtaposition of old and new.  Both changes speak to the shifts taking place in the landscape of media reaching the enterprise IT buying community.

TechCrunch continued its expansion by launching a new site, TechCrunchIT, which is focused on profiling companies in the enterprise technology space.  The editors are Steve Gillmor, a long-time industry journalist and Nik Cubrilovic, an enterprise technology entrepreneur blogging as a secondary pursuit.  According to its about page:

TCIT is dedicated to obsessively profiling products and companies in the Enterprise Technology space. TCIT aims to promote an understanding of emerging and existing Enterprise technologies and to analyze their commercial, social, and consumer impacts.

This certainly fills a big void inTechCrunch's area of coverage, as the original blog really only covers consumer-oriented Web 2.0 companies.  Scanning TCIT's first few days of posts, however, it seems that like it's parent blog, it covers mostly start-ups.  Unlike TechCrunch, however, it doesn't seem the new blog has the same audience yet, as only a few comments have been posted.  I wouldn't be surprised to see its audience and influence grow, but it certainly bears watching.

This contrasted with rumors of more changes afoot at one of the most venerable of old-guard enterprise IT media titles.  Since this is not official information, I'll withhold the name of the publication, but the changes have to do with how reporters cover news, with a shift towards blogging about news in a manner that offers more opinion that in straight news stories. 

If true, this simply will be latest in a pattern of how traditional enterprise IT publications have evolved in a way to encourage more reader participation and interaction, as data has shown that IT buyers are trusting this type of information over traditional editorial content.  This certainly is how TechCrunch delivers its information and this has been a factor in how it's built its audience, perhaps at the expense of the traditional titles.  Regardless, titles like eWEEK and InfoWorld continue to have loyal readerships, so having another outlet reaching this buying community is a welcoming sign.