Staci Kramer, Executive Editor for paidContent.org, moderated a discussion with Jeff Price, President of SI.com and Jim Spanfeller, President and CEO of Forbes.com. Staci: What prior experiences prepared you for taking on digital? Jim: had been in magazines all along, did magazines covering the Internet market, so had some familiarity and expertise - but still had a headache the first nine months there trying to catch up with the hands-on experience. Staci: You were ahead of a lot of colleagues. Jim: So I thought, but then, "your ad-serving system is down." New issues, needing to understand CMS, etc. Jeff: brand background, interesting part has been putting the consumer first, church and state issues can be an impediment to success, need to have a real focus on the sports fan, think through their eyes in a broad context.

Staci: Barriers still exist at Time-Life, but is there now more excitement about breaking down walls? Jeff: our walls are broken down, don't want to confuse the reader, at the end of the day it's about having a common mission. We're partners to meet the needs of consumers. Jim: Notion of transparency helps to break down barriers, if you do something that's out of bounds, you know about it immediately via online feedback. Offline world, idea that you're losing audience is much more disconnected. Checks and balances, puts the user at the center of the whole process.

Staci: Forbes has a separate online environment, SI has an integrated model, being carried to other pubs in Time, does separate work for Forbes? Taking the magazine and put it on the Web doesn't work, neither does the reverse. Forbes brand online is different from print product brand. Separate ad sales. Pushed to discuss integrative programs, try to collaborate with print. [COMMENT: Forbes print is a very different audience, using online as a mass media model moreso. They should probably position Forbes.com like a Marketwatch is positioned with Dow Jones and then position a new Forbes Select-style portal specifically for Forbes prints elites - perhaps with members-only user content.] Jeff: reporters think topic 24x7, but know how to write for different media. Staci: Old days mags would have real-time scoops and would have to hold for pubs, today it's different. Jim: 30 percent of audience comes from overseas, biggest business site in Europe [COMMENT: effect of AFX content as EU adopts English as an official language? Agence France Presse has some problems with French political issues, but beyond that has the potential to become the English Euro-brand].

Staci: targeting users by allowing them to pick how they want to get our content, maybe a woman doesn't want the swimsuit pictures. Jim: Forbes attache, personalize for online. Staci: online franchises are getting extended via new channels, phone video, wallpapers, what works? Jeff: these have been wildly successful, need to really think about how to get content into different forms, swimsuits are important, but now impacting how other strategies roll out from those lessons. Really about how you produce great content and how does the organization have the ability to emulate what SI does with it. Jim: hard to get your user base to take time to interact with peers in the middle of the day. Some success in finance, personal finance, stock picking. Forums and ideas around specific disciplines in business. Different tribes. Jeff: John Battelle's conversational media, what conversations can be started, "face in the crowd" videos, new acquisitions to put sports fans first for aggregation and community.

Seems like we're on the cusp of exciting things, I think that we're going to have a whole different buzz on aggressive magazine titles in a year, but only for the few that are running hard now. We'll see about the rest.

Question: Audience measurement. Jim: More pressing in offline, online number of uniques not as relevant as ability to serve campaigns, as long as benefits seen they're happy. Have to come to agreements about measurements on uniques. Nielsen panels are adapting, but little ability to get behind firewalls during workday. Hard to get exact measurement, IAB stepping in, defining what a unique visitor is. Jeff: not number one worry, if you're not in top three of vertical that can hurt, but away from that less so, still important to get agreement. Staci: AJAX will monkey with page views, affects metrics, harder to compare stats. Will impact page views but not uniques.

Good panel! Thanks, Staci.