This is the second time this month I’ve seen a print publication close down. Intelligent Enterprise a BtoB technology publication owned by CMP made the Febrary issue their last one in print. They announced that they plan to continue online but at last count the site seemed to have less than 8 advertisers.

Yesterday morning MediaSurvey broke the story that InfoWorld Magazine would stop printing effective Monday morning. The story was picked up at ValleyWag and the San Francisco Chronicle. The rumor is that the employees weren’t even in the loop.

Matt McAlister a past employee of the magazine has a real solid post with lots of links etc.

I’m not surprised to see that various print publications are struggling to stay afloat in the Web 2.0 world. But what continues to astonish me is the level of arrogance the big publishing companies exhibit when making these decisions. When Intelligent Enterprise switched to the web they supported the move by not keeping Dave Stoddard on the team. He is one of the most respected and liked editors in that publications community. How do they hope to move forward without the leadership that got them to the dance?

Lets look at the move Infoworld is making, how do you change your business model, switch mediums on your advertisers and do it all without being at least a little transparent? Don’t any of these executives read the web? You can’t just declare your an Internet publication without having a culture, a team and a knowledgable client base to support it.

I filed this one under Worst Practices because it’s not how you jump the chasm to Web 2.0.