The CEO of AllBusiness.com -- and former CEO of About.com -- chats with us about how B2B is and isn't different from B2C, blogs, RSS and more.
Editor's note: In May of 2005, Peter Horan joined AllBusiness.com as president and chief executive officer. AllBusiness.com is one of the most comprehensive sources of business advice and information on the web. Horan joined AllBusiness.com following the sale of About, Inc. to the New York Times Company for $410 million in March 2005. Horan had been president and CEO of About since December, 2003. Before coming to About, Horan was CEO of DevX, Inc. from 2000 to 2004. From 1991 to 2000, he was senior vice president of International Data Group (IDG). Prior to joining IDG, Horan was a senior vice president and group director at Ogilvy & Mather, managing the Microsoft worldwide advertising account. Horan earned his BA in English from Santa Clara University and MBA from San Francisco State University.
iMedia: Are you open to talking about why you left About after the acquisition by the New York Times?
Peter Horan: Happy to talk about why I am leaving. In fact, I'd like to. I came to About to do a specific job at the request of my old and good friend, Kelly Conlin, the CEO of Primedia. That job was to help the team define and execute a strategy to resume growth at About. Kelly was probably the only person who could have talked me into leaving the SF Bay Area. My wife and I viewed our time in New York as a glorious "extended vacation." I loved my time at About. We enjoyed living in the big city for 18 months. However, we kept our house in California and had always expected to move home when About was on solid footing. This spring, after the sale to the Times, we made the decision to return to California. It was only because I am so optimistic about the Times' ownership of About that I was comfortable making the move.
iMedia: Aside from the difference in scope -- About.com covers everything under the sun and AllBusiness.com focuses on the still-large topic of business -- what do you see as the main differences between the two sites? And how do you think your experience with About will impact AllBusiness?
Horan: About.com does an exceptional job of providing practical solutions to everyday problems across 57,000 topics -- everything from health to autos to entertainment. AllBusiness is focused just on the needs of the people running small and midsized businesses.
Even with that distinction though, the mission is actually quite similar -- helping people make smarter decisions, get more done and be more successful. AllBusiness is a great resource for decision-makers that will become more robust over time. We will offer readers an interesting mix of content, community and commerce that's tailored to their needs.
iMedia: Do you think advertisers should approach business and/or B2B sites differently than consumer sites? If so, how? More generally, how would you like advertisers to think about AllBusiness?
Horan: I've spent most of my career both on the agency and media side working on B2B marketing. That's not an accident. I really enjoy trying to solve business problems and using information to change the landscape of business.
Advertisers need to have a different mindset when working with business media. Numbers provide directional support for decisions. However, they don't substitute for a close reading of the media. Understanding the relationship between the medium and its readers is essential and provides the insights that open the door to strategic partnerships that make a difference in the client's business. In addition, while consumer advertising often needs to be intrusive to cut through clutter, B2B advertising must, most of all, be clear because the advertiser's product is often part of the solution set for the consumer.
iMedia: AllBusiness has its bloggers prominently listed in its global navigation. About.com depended on its talented and wide-ranging editorial staff. Do you see any particular difference between the two strategies? Do bloggers have more independence than editors?
As one particular example of this, Paul Chaney, an AllBusiness blogger, scooped your appointment as CEO a day before the official press release. (You can see the entry here.)
Were you surprised to see one of your own bloggers do this? Regardless, how would you characterize your reaction? There has been a whole lot of ink spilled on the issue of employee blogs and how it can reflect either positively or negatively on a corporation. From the CEO's perspective, what's your take?
Horan: In many ways, About is truly the first (and only) successful blog network. About's 500 guides use blogging as a tool to comment on events and showcase their evergreen content. It has been and will remain a “publish first” model similar to a blog network. The role of the editors is to mentor the guides, establish the standards, and lead the guides in the direction that the business needs to go.
Blogging is one element of a media company's content mix, just as columnists are one feature within a newspaper.
Blogging offers AllBusiness the ability to tap into many people's wisdom, insight and talent. Blogging gives our content freshness and immediacy. All those benefits can be stifled by too much supervision. In the long run, the benefits far outweigh any minor blips such as a leak.
iMedia: AllBusiness already has RSS feeds for much or all of its content. Are there any other emerging platforms (mobile and podcasting come to mind as examples) that you plan to explore? If so, how might AllBusiness benefit from including more technologies than the web, email and RSS?
Horan: AllBusiness will provide smart, useful and actionable information in whatever format our readers want it. We have a strong commitment to add articles and photos to the AllBusiness network. We'll also add videos, podcasts and tools such as forms.