The Way of the Ad-Sales Samurai

Is Ted Bahr, co-founder of BZ Media, the Last Samurai of print advertising?

Folio Magazine’s Tony Silber thinks so, as you can read in his blog post, aptly titled “The Last Samurai.” There, Tony questions Ted’s unwillingness to write off print advertising as a profitable, sustainable business for publishing companies.

However, as Ted explains in his rebuttal post, “The Samurai Responds,” he’s not giving an inch. He’s getting the BZ Media sales team fired up about print and suggests that instead of blithely accepting talk of print’s demise, that other publishers should do the same.

As you should expect, Ted and I see eye-to-eye here. Ted’s blog describes our strategy for 2010 and beyond. Given that we’ve out-survived and out-thrived nearly every one of our many competitors, perhaps there’s still honor (and profit) in pursuing the noble publishing traditions.

Read Ted’s post, tell me what you think about our business bushido.