There’s been a flurry of announcements recently about b2b publishers setting up paid content models.  Construction News have put subs-only content behind a pay-wall; Paid content is investigating paid models, and the New York Times has announced it is moving to a metered model.  After the initial focus on newspapers, it’s now the specialist b2b publishers who are testing out new approaches.  The recent closure of Media Week shows that the old model of a weekly magazine filled with news and gossip and a few surveys and opinion pieces just doesn’t stack up.  Most business people are now plugged into a community that circulates industry news through email, blogs, linked-in and twitter.  Where b2b publishers potentially have an edge is in using their knowledge and contacts for creating lead generation or trend forecasting services, or providing useful tools that help people do their job better.  A great example is Emap’s WGSN, who can charge £15k for trend forecasting services.  Here are the main paid content business models that b2b publishers appear to be using: (more…)