For its part, Telephony has been much more a victim of changing reader habits, disappearing advertising dollars and miserable publishing economics, but also slowness to adapt digitally. Not the first vertical trade magazine to shed its print body for hoped-for digital immortality, Connected Planet has its work cut out for it in competing against e-born Light Reading, which with former and highly regarded Telephony editor Carol Wilson on board, is now, in our opinion, the leading independent telecommunications industry information brand in the U.S. Very few would have predicted such a seismic shift five or even three years ago!

To see an entire industry’s once unshakable primary offline media brands disappear overnight is as clear a sign as we’ve seen yet of the offline world giving away to the brave new online world.  We predict the closing of many more print pubs and weak or weakened trade shows before the year is out. In fact, just before I put this post to bed, I learned that Penton Media, perhaps the bluest of blue chip names in vertical business publishing, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today while asserting this step will not lead to cessation of any operations. We’ll see.