Is this man the smartest guy in AU digital media?

Former Text Media owner and Sydney Morning Herald editor Eric Beecher is building up a pretty impressive web business.

With Crikey established, Business Spectator growing rapidly, Eureka Report and Smart Company - Beecher has 4 publications that are hard not to notice.

Plus he has a team of people who are well respected - Kohler, Gottleibsen, Mayne, Amanda Gome, Jonathan Green and many more - who are delivering engaging content.

And he is making very strong in roads on an extremely valuable audience and showing that there will always be demand for strong, intelligent content.

So whilst the groups that used to dominate eyeball share of this lucrative audience focus on singles sites and trying to nail youth, Beecher has put together web assets that would be pound for pound, page for page probably the most valuable in the country. Advertisers want to reach a quality audience in quality surrounds - the Beecher sites achieve this.

Sure, the audiences aren't super massive - but they are strong and they are loyal to quality content. And right now, quality is the key differentiator as it is relatively easy to reach most audiences online ... but difficult to reach them in quality environments.

According to Nielsen Market Intelligence, to 22 September they had achieved the following user figures this month.

Business Spectator - 152,000 users

Crikey - 118,000 users

Smart Company - 65,000 users

Eureka Report - 39,000 users

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These four are sites to watch - because I feel they haven't even started to scratch the surface on what they could do.

LinkedIn and NY Times distro alliance

I like this - makes sense and gives Linked In a good way to generate distribution but in a relevant, valuable way.

A deal like this locally could be done with a Crikey/Business Spectator - or a Plugger - or even Fairfax. Makes total sense

Techcrunch post - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/nytimes-to-customize-headlines-for-linkedin-users/

Could work for a Last FM with Music content too.

Great AU online media brands

I was reading this great post from John Battelle on his blog - http://battellemedia.com/archives/004358.php

"Consumer Brands Love Media Brands, and Media Brands are Changing Regardless of all the flux in how brand marketing might work online, here's one thing of which I am certain: Consumer brands love media brands. Why? Because the best media brands represent a passionate community who are deeply engaged around a subject of shared interest"

What are Australia's great online media brands. The ones that demonstrate those qualities Battelle exhibits above?

I am sure there are plenty. What I am not sure of is whether they position themselves to the ad market as great brands, or whether they present themselves as a mass of eyeballs and reach because that's what they think the digital ad space wants.

Battelle used the phrase "tonnage instead of brand engagement" and I think that is incredibly apt.

Two successful digital players that have emerged in the past year have defied this trend are KidSpot and Business Spectator. They are selling a mindset, an audience profile, not scale. And it's working - they generate strong yield and maintain editorial integrity.

Probably something for everyone to think about as we enter a new financial year and the players gear up to try and maintain the growth levels the investors are starting to expect.

I have always been vocal in saying that online publishers need to take a look at pricing and avoid the temptation to look at automation or performance. The hard work that needs to be done is getting insights and analysis into their audience which allows them to maintain differentiation.

As a media guy I don't want to to know anymore just how many users you have - I want to know more about them and how I can give them value. I am constantly amazed at the blank stares I get when I ask this question to salespeople.