Of course, niche wins.

The Newsweekly’s Last Stand: Good article from the Atlantic about why The Economist is thriving while Time and Newsweek struggle.

“Virtually alone among magazines, The Economist saw its advertising revenues increase last year by double digits—a remarkable 25 percent, according to the Publisher’s Information Bureau. Newsweek’s and Time’s dropped 27 percent and 14 percent, respectively. … The Economist has been growing consistently and powerfully for years, tracking in near mirror-image reverse the decline of its U.S. rivals.”

The conclusion is far from novel – “that niche is sometimes the smartest way to take over the world.” Look at really successful people and companies, like Steve Jobs and Google. They weren’t “Jacks of all Trades.” Far from it. Google’s conception was bred from one goal: to improve search.

Likewise, the Economist in its infancy in the states catered to die-hard international relations readers who wanted to know what was going on Namibia, yet was comprehensive enough to appeal to “average” people who just wanted a general summary of what was going in the world. “Where else, really, can you actually keep up with Africa?”

“The secret to The Economist’s success is not its brilliance, or its hauteur, or its typeface. The writing in Time and Newsweek may be every bit as smart, as assured, as the writing in The Economist. But neither one feels like the only magazine you need to read. You may like the new Time and Newsweek. But you must—or at least, brilliant marketing has convinced you that you must—subscribe to The Economist.” – Need being the keyword in this excerpt.

But like Google, it doesn’t stay a niche product. “Despite being positioned as a niche product, its U.S. circulation is nearing 800,000, and it will inevitably overtake Newsweek on that front soon enough.”

Another reason it’s been doing so well is that its users apparently aren’t tech savvy enough to realize that you can get the content for free – but this is where the article fails to elaborate as to why. It’s not simply that Economist readers aren’t tech savvy enough to visit the website, it’s because why would anyone choose to read their exhaustive articles and columns on a computer screen? I know the website and free content exist, but I’d take the magazine for $6.99, on most days. I mean, you could also print out the articles, but who’s going to do that? The Green Movement would frown upon that anyway.

“In the digital age, razor-sharp clarity and definition are the keys to success. Knowing what and who you are, and conveying that idea to an audience, is the only way to break through to readers ADD’ed out on an infinitude of choices.”