The Countdown Begins

Being that information is CRN's business, this obsession makes sense. But what about your information needs?

To find out, the CMP Channel Group, which publishes CRN, undertook a study of solution providers' information-gathering behavior and the needs driving them to various information sources. The result confirmed our suspicions: Your readership habits are changing and so, dear readers, must we.

According to the approximately 1,100 respondents, your top motivations for information gathering are as follows: to keep up to date, to grow your career, to solve today's problems, to push into new business frontiers and to feel part of a professional community.

What's more, you look in a combination of places for the answers, including digital media such as Web sites or Web seminars, print and face-to-face encounters. To solve a problem immediately, for example, close to two-thirds of you gravitate first to digital media. To keep up to date or identify new business opportunities, however, most of you prefer print.

These fundamental findings are at the core of what we call CRN 2007. As this publication enters its 25th anniversary year, we've rethought the respective roles of our print edition and our Web site, which has been growing traffic at an average of 15 percent year-to-date. Our overriding revelation: The two cannot simply be a mirror of each other. So, we'll exploit the natural advantages of each platform—online will be about news, community and researching problems, while print will be about news analysis and perspective, giving you a chance to reflect and think. This week's cover report and affiliated online directory on emerging vendors are a great example, and something you'll see at least once per month in 2007.

I'll chronicle the most dramatic of these changes in the weeks to come. And you'll see the first of our redesign online and in print in early January.

What would you like to see analyzed on the first 2007 cover? HEATHER CLANCY, Editor at CRN, welcomes story ideas at [email protected].