I didn't see anything saying the mags would merge. The Falconhead deal had already been posted here.
.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

I'm pretty sure that the last thread about Falconhead was about their aquiring Triathlete, so the latest aquisition of Inside Communications is news.

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Geoffrey Nenninger

Interesting, wonder if they merge the magazines into one.

Dave

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

No. There was this thread earlier today.


http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=1665994

My bad, I missed that thread. Sorry for the re-post.
BTW, your link doesn't work ; )

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

You were too quick to click it! Maybe Lars will get on here and tell us what's going down with IT.

"wonder if they merge the magazines into one."

inside tri is going to morph into "an up-market, 'elite' companion to triathlete" magazine, according to one of the press releases that accompanied the acquisition. i have no idea what that means.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

maybe more about pro race coverage then Triathletes more AG oriented workouts reviews etc.?

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_________________________________________________

It hurts so bad, it feels good.

why does no one care?? hello out there. I'm working on a little editorial for my blog and once Im done Ill post it on here. what are people thinking out there? Im sure lars would like to discuss but realitically he cant as an employee. Upscale?? Like $9 (I guess CAD or USD don't make diff anymore) Vogue?

Slowman - will you keep writing for them??

Will we get more tv coverage? get rid of the awful commentators and get some real ones?

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//semi retired - old school = http://www.iwilltri.com //

Ok here it goes - and I haven't had time to post it on my site but at least people on here will probably find lots of things to pick apart, which would be good sicne itd start a discussion....


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Velonews and Insidetri have been sold to the newly formed Competitor group (which owns Triathlete Magazine, Competitor Magazines, and Muddy Buddy). This is very significant for the triathlon journalism and advertising industry and will have a huge impact going forward. Right now they are saying that InsideTri will be rebranded as an "elite" magazine, which I guess means geared towards the triathlon geeks like myself that want more than just simple newbie-newbie-10-weeks-to-your-first-tri (which is NOT bad and is needed).

Details are few at this point and it will be very interesting to see how this shapes our sport - the advertising combo packages will be the rage as they can pitch an insurance company (Aflac took over Irongirl) for example and offer print, on-line, and race promotion. One hiccup might be that we are in or heading towards a recession and triathlon is one expensive/fringe sport that will not hold it's own versus increasing milk and oil prices. But ok apart from the short term - this new entity will wield more power than just about every other triathlon organization ex-ITU. Yes it will be more important than the WTC or USAT or any individual national entity. Pros are starved for media attention and the endorsement dollars that follow - last time I checked it's not like the Australian's or French are going to get a rising star an endorsement, plus all the big money races are here in the U.S. Don't even start with USAT - they only care about the Olympics and getting more members, and the latest battles around Elites shows where they stand (which probably makes monetary sense for the now but not for the future). So yes this mega-merger matters and from taking a look around the interneto it sure seems like most people don't care. Well they will care once we see more races on TV or less, better magazines or worse, better race coverage or worse, etc.

One aspect that will be particularly interesting (and that neither magazine will write about of course) is that InsideTri and Triathlete Magazine have had a healthy battle - and that would be a nice way of putting it. They publish from two different locations (Colorado and California) with different styles and focus. Triathlete has the "old guard" with the multisports.com crew and the whole San Diego mafia in general - "we were in the sport in the beginning and we have built this up from scratch". On the other side InsideTri is the younger, hipper little brother that actually UNDERSTANDS the internet and has made it a point to evolve with the digital medium. Over the years we've seen and heard the little tid bits about Bike Count "arguments" (or partnerships) for example and for the most part that is just part of the healthy nature of competition.

What happens going forward is anyone's guess. But I do see the following things happening:

1) The Old Guard (multisports.com, Duke, Competitor,etc) gain even more power in the tri scene
2) Active.com gains more power (and yes they are the ticketmaster of our day - ridiculous fees - ridiculous I tell you! I will mail in a race form with a, gasp!, check, over active.com every time)
3) The insidetri guys can keep the on-line thing going and grow it - they are good at it and this might give them more resource$ - I could see race videos for every major race (Lifetimes series, Ironman, 70.3, and a few key ones like Wildflower, Roth, etc) popping up if they give Lars the money for equipment and travel.
4) Some shakeup in the monthly writers - I hope Dan Empfield and Friel stay, as well as Tinley. Some of the others should move on.
5) More TV coverage - this was going to happen anyways but now will have a deeper network to draw from.

What won't happen
1) The price of either magazine will go down
2) Any negative review of any product! (yes we get the joke = ads = $) but I'd love for someone to just write 1 negative review - ie "these newton's are just a bunch of pros getting together to build a company and earn the rewards" : ) Or - "this dimpled water bottle is actually a joke and you should realize that the majority of the time you'll have a non-aero-gatorade bottle in your cage."
3) More coverage for the non-hooked up crowd - ie the HFP races, Roth, smaller independent Bike Stores, etc.


And lastly since I can't help myself - what would I do if I suddenly owned this big Triathlon empire:
1) Kill triathletemag.com and throw bunches of money at insidetri.com.
2) Bundle subscription of 2 mags + way reduced active.com entry fees
3) Offer the back page of both mags to 1 mega advertiser, along with prominent display at Muddy Buddy (ie what Ford has done to the Ironman/WTC).
4) Region-oriented race coverage of every major race along with an editor. So you'd open up and see the "East Coast" report with clubs/races/local bike store ads, etc for that region - same would go for Western Europe, Asia,etc.
5) Building on the previous #4 - finally go global and do it right - keep the print mags in English - but use the website to have Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Japanese content along with that region (and translated back into English).
6) Have a section where on the ground non-pro triatheltes can write in articles - not just comments.

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//semi retired - old school = http://www.iwilltri.com //

2) Active.com gains more power (and yes they are the ticketmaster of our day - ridiculous fees - ridiculous I tell you! I will mail in a race form with a, gasp!, check, over active.com every time) \\

Not sure why you think this?? These guys are going to end up being a competitor of Active, if anything it will hurt them. If you have a 1/2 million+ athletes doing your races, first order of business is to do your own online registration. Why pay the vig to Active, when you can get it yourself?? DOesn't make sense. All off these sites and companies are headed in somewhat the same direction, and will compete with each other either directly, or indirectly....

monty, what you mentioned is what I initially thought too - but I'm just wondering if mr. mitch might just be able to broker/position a deal where he can provide the engine that is already there and "leverage" it. it would be nice to see an insider post on here even anonymously...

if they are going to compete head to head than yes that is great, but somehow I'm sure they are looking seriously at active.com and whether they could just use that and rename it competitactive.com or activetitor.com something :)

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//semi retired - old school = http://www.iwilltri.com //

Maybe something akin to CycleSport for tri. I always thought InsideTri has superior photography than Triathlete Mag. Perhaps something more glossy, on heavier paper with fewer but more in depth articles. Ditch the two month old race results, more analysis, etc. Seems likes an opportunity there since both mags are frankly pretty weak.

"Inside tri is going to morph into an up-market, 'elite' companion to Triathlete magazine"

I'd love to see a sort of Surfer's Journal for triathletes. Lots of photos of beautiful courses, bikes and bodies, historical pieces, travel pieces. Bring Tinley over to IT and let Carlson go crazy. Leave the technical and training articles, the race coverage and the glitz of the pro circuit for Triathlete. I don't know if there are enough nostalgic old-timers in the sport to support such a mag though.

Sort of sad for someone who has been writing (just a little) for Inside Tri since the beginning. I always thought of IT as the independent voice of the sport, the underdog always fighting to survive. That independent voice is seemingly gone now, at least on paper...

Hector, just a few notes in response to your blog (which I honestly believe was very well put together, nice work).

1. You seem to dislike triathletemag.com. We always welcome feedback, positive, or very negative -- what kind of changes would you like to see?

2. About triathlon being a "fringe" sport -- I have to disagree. It's a lifestyle sport. For those competing, it's a serious part of their lives. They'd give up expensive milk before selling their P3C. We could enter another great depression and people would still cough up $400 to race Ironman -- it's that important to them/us.

Thanks for your interest -- and keep up the blog. You're clearly much more prepared for IMAZ than I am!

Brad Culp
Associate/Interactive Editor
Triathlete Magazine
brad@triathletemag.com

Hi Brad, thanks for responding. I don't want to sound mean on the internet (which can happen) but I do think there are quite a few things that could improve your site - here are a basic few off the top of my head:

1) Re-do the layout - I have tried the site on different browsers and specially in Internet Explorer you get white spaces (at the top mostly) that seem to be out of place.

2) House the blogs you point to within triathletemag - when you link them to blogspot,etc many corporate sites block those other sites and you can't get to them.

3) Highlight the print magazine on the front - for example there is a nice section on "what is inside the mag" but its just on the sidebar - profile it on the site and get people excited about buying the magazine!

4) Update the content - this is probably the #1 for me.
-Right now if you go under "Features" the top story (carbon) is from February...2007. The fifth story is about '06 USAT rankings. One of the things that makes ST/XTRI/and insidetri so valuable is that they update the content.

- If you go under "Race Coverage" you only have '06 and '07 - why not have a historical database by date and alphabetical with your stories, pictures, video? I'd love to see alphabetical listings and go back to read Alcatraz '01, '02,'03, etc... or if someone is looking for a race last year that took place "sometime in August" they can look for August '07 and find the Chicago Triathlon coverage.

-The photo gallery is even worse - it goes from Kona '07 to some 2003 galleries back to 2004, etc. For example you guys went to China and reported on it - but how easy would it be for me to find that on your site?

Information is powerful if it is organized - and for being the largest tri mag in the world it just seems to me that maybe the effort has not been put forth on the internet side. Don't get me wrong, I think the print one is the paper of record for our sport - but what about being on the front edge of using tech? How hard would it to have video on the site? Triathletetv never gets updated and while the site you picked to house it provides a nice backbone, it takes people away from your site instead of keeping them on it (ala insidetri). Look at what flocast does - your site should at the very least be that innovative and alive.

I have hopes for this new enterprise since I think that putting more creative people together will lead to a better experience for your customers and our sport - but the internet has to be a priority.

Quiet simply you guys have the deepest/broadest relationships in our sport and I don't think that has been tapped to it's fullest potential - which I'm sure is something the PE guys at falconhead realize : )

Hey lastly - I didn't know you were doing IMAZ - I'd love to sit down and chat at the race,
Hector.

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//semi retired - old school = http://www.iwilltri.com //

Hector,

One follow-up. Any window problems with Microsoft Internet Explorer can be solved by updating to IE7. We've seen this problem quite a bit, as do other sites that use a similar posting tool. The latest version has worked out most of the kinks (or, just buy a Mac and use Safari or Firefox...Macs look cooler too). You can download the latest version here...

http://www.microsoft.com/...ads/ie/getitnow.mspx

See you in Tempe.

Brad