After posting a $315 million dollar loss in the third quarter of 2007, Quebecor-World, the world’s largest printer, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

From NationalPost.com:

For Gaetano DiTrapani, co-president of printer Phipps Dickson and a 30-year printing veteran, the headaches began with the Internet and the environmental movement.

As more people chose the screen over the printed sheet, he said, it also became trendy to reduce paper use. Less demand for paper led to printer overcapacity.

More information here or here.

It looks like Wal-Mart has grown tired of how wasteful and inefficient the magazine industry has become. In a move that illustrates just how far demand for magazines has fallen, the country’s largest magazine retailer has dropped 1,000 titles from its racks.

From magazine-industry trade publication Folio:

“…according to industry sources with knowledge of Wal-Mart’s plans, the company’s Sustainability Committee””and its commitment to reducing waste””played a key role in its decision.”

I’m sure the minor detail of not wanting to tie up their shelf space with poor-selling products also had something to do with the decision, but it’s certainly to Wal-Mart’s credit that they even considered the environmental aspects of this situation.

Wal-Mart isn’t exactly targeting early-adopters, so you know that when iconic magazines like Better Homes & Garden, Fortune, etc. are being given the boot, consumers’ media habits have changed. I haven’t seen a complete list yet, but looks like they even dropped my personal favorite, Boar Hunter Magazine. If that magazine can’t cut it at Wal-Mart, nothing will!

Look for many publishers to have miraculous spikes in their subscription levels that will mask right over this…

Read more at Foliomag.com and NYPost.com

Take a look at this chart from AdAge.com showing the favorite leisure activities among males. Not surprisingly, activities that involve sitting in front of a TV or computer monitor dominate the list. I was actually a little surprised that reading newspapers and magazines was so consistently low across all three age groups – a mere 1%.

It’s interesting to see how generational differences can lead to flawed strategies. Too often, marketers assume that customers of a different generation will nonetheless share their perspective. Exhibit A: Only 1% of Millennials cited watching DVDs/VHS tapes as their favorite activity, versus 8% of Gen X’ers. Maybe this explains why so many skate and BMX companies continue pouring money into DVD production! They love DVDs and hate the quality of online video, so they incorrectly assume that their 15-year-old customer must as well. And even when there is a realization that things have changed, they often just make small tweaks to their outdated strategy. For example, in the face of cratering DVD sales, many marketers have begun to give them away rather than sell them. Maybe the problem is that their customers don’t much care about DVDs! So instead of boldly adopting more effective ways of reaching their customers, people often continue trying to force through different variations of what used to work.

I’m sure generational biases affect many other areas of marketing, but this one jumped out at me from this survey.

Vital MX was proud to be featured on the January 8th Pit Pass Radio show. Pit Pass Radio is broadcasted live to 35,000 listeners and is dedicated to informing fans about the happenings in the motorcycle industry. We shared the two-hour show with Troy Lee from Troy Lee Designs and Justin Brayton of Team MDK KTM.

The show went great and was really fun to do. I primarily talked about how Vital blends professionally-generated content with user-generated content. Interestingly, the Pit Pass hosts had lots of great things to say about Vital, including that   we’re doing a great job presenting  motocross to the mainstream.

Steve ‘GuyB’ Giberson  was scheduled to talk for the last half of our  segment…but I ran long. Sorry GuyB!  Pit Pass  promised to  have Steve on soon  so he can  tell everyone  what it’s like traveling to all the races and creating most of the content for Vital MX.

For more information, check out www.pitpassradio.com.

AdAge.com recently summarized the trends to watch for in 2008. Below  is a  great quote that applies directly to Vital Media Network and our mission.

“…all media ultimately will be created and delivered digitally. Can anyone legitimately argue with that? Naahhh. And the  beat goes on in 2008. Digital offers richness in information management, communication delivery, metrics — and portability. Simply look at the iPhone and similar devices to know consumers will have all forms of media at their fingertips 24/7.”

You can see the complete list of the 2008 trends  here.

The importance of search engines as a tool for generating traffic and expanding a site’s audience can not be overstated. When people are looking for information on just about any topic, Google is often the first place they start. Recognizing this early on, we’ve devoted a lot of resources toward making sure that our sites have good visibility with the search engines. Our current rankings show that it’s paying off! For both search terms “BMX” and “BMX videos,” Vital BMX is currently #1 on Google’s results page. Vital Skate and Vital MX are both showing up in fourth place for “skateboarding videos” and “motocross videos.” While the results sometimes fluctuate, we’ve been solidly in the top-five for several months now with these terms.

Search engines heavily favor older sites, so I was a little surprised that our sites moved into such good positions so quickly. In fact, a search-marketing consultant I spoke with said that his company doesn’t even accept clients whose sites are less than a few years old, as they are so likely to be disappointed with the results. So how did we get so high up in the rankings in less than 18 months? By continually generating content that creates buzz online. That’s primarily what search engines like Google are looking for (and, not incidentally, it’s pretty much what every visitor to our sites is looking for as well).

One huge benefit of our strong search engine rankings is that they bring us a steady flow of first-time visitors. Lots of people come to our sites by Googling the site name or through a bookmark, but they’re already regular visitors. People coming to our sites after Googling terms like “BMX” or “skateboarding videos” tend to be fresh faces. By having these two different types of visitors (plus people who come to our sites via links on other sites), we’ve developed an audience that keeps expanding and is made up of both newcomers and hardcores.

This week has been extremely busy as we gear up for the opening round of the Monster Energy Supercross season. For those of you unfamiliar with Supercross, it’s a 16-race motocross series that travels to various stadiums around the country. The 2008 series starts this Saturday and runs through the end of May.

This year  a  marketing  war has broken out  between the energy drinks. Numerous energy drinks are spending lots of money to reach this demographic. The two big dogs are Monster Energy as the new Supercross Series title sponsor (rumored to be $5 million a year) and Red Bull. Coincidentally, both brands had a team intro on Wednesday this past week. The war heated up a bit more the  following day  at the annual  Press Day at Anaheim Stadium. See the photos and captions below for more insight.

The Monster Energy/Kawasaki team intro and Open House at the Kawasaki headquarters was an event for the entire company. The intro was followed by a tour of the race shop, a walk-through of the new Kawasaki Supercross rig, and lunch.

You know any event that Red Bull puts on is a classy affair. Erin Bates hosted the Honda/Red Bull  team intro at a swanky Laguna Beach spot. Pictured (from left to right)  - Ben Townley, Ivan Tedesco, Erin Bates, Andrew Short, and Davi Millsaps.

Following the Monster Energy/Kawasaki and Honda/Red Bull  team intros was Press Day at Anaheim Stadium. Honda/Red Bull  factory rider Ben Townley drew some laughs (and some oohhs) when he pulled a Red Bull out of his pocket before picking up the microphone to answer any questions.

Notice how Chad Reed doesn’t have any Monster Energy cans sitting on the table? He moved the Monster cans  to the side because he is sponsored by  Fusion Energy.

To see more photos from any of these events, check www.vitalmx.com.