Last one to leave, turn out the lights
Since 1998, Basex:TechWatch has been a weekly communiqué from the desks of our analysts directly to you. Without our loyal subscribers, it would have never had the run that it has. Now we have decided to complete this chapter and start a new one.
Basex:TechWatch was created to keep readers on the leading edge of new ideas and new technology in an easy-to-read digest format. Since 1998, we’ve written well over 20,000 articles and never missed a single issue. What we wrote about in our analyst opinions resulted in thousands of e-mail messages from readers asking questions and commenting. The topics we covered in the areas of knowledge sharing, information management, and collaboration were both exciting and a substantial learning experience.
Of course, no swan song would be complete without a mention of the problem of Information Overload. When we first started talking about this problem, in the mid 1990s, most people thought we were crazy. After all, there could never be too much information. Once we started publishing numbers that described the incredibly high cost of Information Overload the tune changed. We were gratified that so many thousands of companies and the media came to rely on what our research revealed, which included the fact that the cost of Information Overload to the U.S. economy was one trillion dollars for the year 2010.
The sheer quantity of it all was unprecedented, and many of the new offerings were also somewhat alien, but our 20,000+ loyal readers told us that they relied on Basex:TechWatch so we never strayed from our mission.
In recent years, however, we found ourselves approaching what would become a critical turning point as what had once been new and foreign was now at the point of becoming mainstream.
Approximately three years ago, we started an experiment that has gained momentum at the same time that we saw collaboration and knowledge-sharing technology mature into what it is now.
Our research in content management systems led us to start several online magazines, Frequent Business Traveler (née Executive Road Warrior) and The Diesel Driver. They took off beyond our wildest expectations. We recently passed the two million mark in terms of page views and have formed a new entity, Accura Media Group (borrowing the Accura corporate name from a company my father founded).
Starting on January 1, 2013, we will be officially ending operations here at Basex to devote our full efforts to Accura.
Our work at Accura is, in many ways, an evolution of Basex, bringing our high-level research and communication to an editorial setting, and like Basex, Accura’s brands are already considered an authority in their respective areas of expertise.
Looking back on the years that we have invested into Basex, and forward to what we will be doing at Accura, not only are we humbled by the magnitude of support we have received, but we eagerly await the challenges ahead.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, for your comments and for your support. This is the final issue of Basex:TechWatch and, starting in December, we will share Frequent Business Traveler Weekly with you. I hope you will like it as much as we do.
Jonathan B. Spira is CEO and Chief Analyst at Basex and author of Overload! How Too Much Information Is Hazardous To Your Organization.
