The online press, the new challenge of Jeff Bezos, Amazon's boss - The Express

a symbol. And a nice shot from Jeff Bezos . The owner and founder of Amazon to offer the Washington Post, the famous American newspaper that was behind Watergate, and more recently part of the title chosen by Edward Snowden for his revelations about the NSA. A flagship of the American press passes under one of the sponsors of the web 19th World fortune, who managed to impose its model in e-commerce … and to the publishing industry falter. Sign of the times and the difficulties facing the web clipboard, for better or for worse, depending on the analysis.

Give the time and the means to innovate

best, these are the growth prospects for Washington Post , whose sales fell 7% and losses totaled $ 54 million in 2012. Advertising revenues fell by 14% last year. And the last five years, its net income fell 40%. Revenues from its website is up (5% in 2012), but the losses of the paper.

“Our revenues have been declining for seven years,” said Donald Graham, CEO of the group. “We were certain that the newspaper survive in our possession, but we wanted more. We wanted it to be successful.” For the Graham family, which owned the newspaper for four generations, Jeff Bezos represented “a unique and extraordinary opportunity.” Friend of the family for years, it was preferred to a half-dozen other candidates.

If

describes himself as a big player release – only online – Jeff Bezos never scored particular interest to the media, except for participation in a round of $ 5 million in Business Insider website. In contrast, the positive is that it is known for long-term investment . This is what he did for Amazon, which has accumulated losses for nine years. He sees further, and wants to take the time to innovate. “There will of course change the Post in the coming years” in order to adapt to the changes created by the Internet, he said. “We need to invent , which means that we will need to experiment.”

Jeff Bezos, for which the $ 250 million invested in the acquisition of Post and several other newspapers in the same group are not 1% of his fortune does not need to return immediately. Especially since he leads the operation name, not the Amazon, subject to market constraints. What is telling the media analyst Jeff Jarvis that the purchase could even be considered philanthropic .

He sees the future in tablets

The worst thing is that the world has changed and the clipboard is now in need of wealthy private investors to save the doldrums. The Post, with 47 Pulitzer Prizes, is no exception to the rule. It sells for $ 250 million, less than half its sales turnover in 2012 (582 million). Last week, the New York Times announced the sale at a loss ($ 70 million against $ 1.1 billion paid in 1993) of the Boston Globe’s principal shareholder baseball club in Boston. Other titles have been bought by businessmen, like the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2011 and the Philadelphia Daily News in 2012.

Jeff Bezos has his own idea about the crisis of the press, reprinted in the Washington Post. According to him, the clipboard will no longer over the next 20 years and the future lies in tablets . “People are willing to pay to subscribe to their paper on their tablet. Tablets increasingly influence our daily lives. Soon every home will have more than one. This is normal. These trends make the strongest press . ” He did put a knee to bookstores, but it will save kiosks.

the clipboard, an investment against the tide

Jeff Bezos, 49, has created Amazon when he was 30 in a garage (obviously), after scientists and computer studies at Princeton and a first professional experience on Wall Street. It is one of the largest and most powerful of the “new economy” that helped to create, along with Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google) bosses. Of “the biggest online bookstore in the world”, Amazon became the first shopping center of the web, extending its activity to multiple categories, from food to clothing, to the high-tech toys and jewelry . Amazon is also a major player in the digital content, cloud and consumer electronic (Kindle). In 2012, the company achieved a turnover of 61 billion dollars.

Usually, Jeff Bezos invests its assets in areas more “modern” than the press. In the conquest of space, for example. Passionate about science fiction, he founded Blue Origin, a company dedicated to space tourism , which works on a shuttle, and acquired land in Texas in order to build a launch pad. Bezos also finance up to $ 42 million to build a clock in a mountain in Texas, designed to work 10,000 years. It also supports civic causes such as gay marriage, for which he spent $ 2.5 million in the state of Washington, and charitable works, particularly in cancer research and education.

synergies to create

If no account is invested in the daily management of the Washington Post, Amazon’s boss might find some synergies between the two businesses. For example, subscribers to the daily could be part of Amazon’s “premium” program, Amazon Prime. Exclusive content could be published on the Kindle. Or newspaper could be integrated with Amazon parcels.

But that fear probably employees of the Post is that Bezos applies to newspaper management methods. Because Amazon is not known for the virtues of its social model. In recent months, the strikes broke out in some of its logistics centers in Germany and France.