Just finished an interesting book, The Fall of the House of Forbes, on Forbes Magazine. Although it starts off slowly, the author spending far too long going over the spending habits of the various Forbes brothers, it does provide a warning to media companies that don’t get the internet. Forbes certainly never did, turning the website into a content farm and seeing the print product disintegrate, as competitors such as Bloomberg kept improving. The book also charts the rather bizarre forays into international licensing, including an Arabic version based in Dubai. Will Forbes ever get back to where it was? Probably not. For anyone interested in the publishing business, this, despite the slightly annoying tone, is well worth a read.

The polar opposite of the Forbes brothers is Seth Godin and I half-way through another of his books – Small is the New Big. A collection of his blog posts, it’s brilliant stuff, as he continues to adapt to the changing economy. Follow his blog. If the Forbes brothers had taken some of his advice, they would probably be in a much better situation today.

Speaking of the changing economy, The Dubai 50 is out on Kindle here and here. Soon to be on all e-reader devices.