It's been a busy four weeks at Reviewed.com. Coming off the launch of three websites, CamcorderInfo.jp, TelevisionInfo.com and MediaPlayerInfo.com was a flurry of travel. Some of the editors and I were in Germany at Photokina, and the DigitalCameraInfo.com team did an amazing job covering the show. We've really focused on taking our reviews and putting more time into the portions of the review that add value to the reader and less time to those that don't. The result was more and better first impressions reviews at the show.
After Germany I spent some time in Europe, and then went right on to Tokyo (with a short weekend to do laundry in NYC) for more business meetings. I met with a lot of people about CamcorderInfo.jp. The reception to the site is very positive, people are impressed with both the size of the site and what we've done in such a short time editorially.
I was talking with someone yesterday and we both realized, hey, look, we're three weeks into Q4. Obviously, being in consumer electronics, a lot of our business happens in Q4. We've been working incredibly hard at launching publications and getting great advertising on the sites for the quarter, and it's almost like we were working so hard that we forgot the quarter had already started!
Things are looking great for Q4. Revenue is way up this quarter over last year. I believe one reason is a lot of our advertisers are flocking to the higher value / higher ROI options in their media campaigns with these tough economic times. They're forced to look at what publications provide the most value, and, because of our focused audience we're at the top of the list. Secondly, I think we've made a lot of good lanch moves this past year. We've really found ways to streamline our editorial process, reducing costs and increasing quality. The result is that we're publishing in many more cateogries, with much better reviews today than we were 12 months ago. Hopefully we'll be able to make similar improvements in 2009.
Of course there are a lot of unknowns in 2009. A lot of indicators are very positive for our business in 2009, on account of the launches, and the consolidation into high performing publciations that we're seeing. That being said, even though the signs are positive, we are being incredibly disciplined on costs. We've always been known for our frugality, but, at every oportunity we're trying to find ways to cut waste and not impact the quality of the business.
