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The Tech & Publishing worlds got rocked significantly this week thanks in part to some startling changes announced by Apple on Tuesday. For a brief summary of the announcements from Apple and Google, check out the week in review over at CNET.

Key Points Summary:

Apple wants to internalize content subscriptions into the iTunes framework, asks for a 30% cut of revenue, and price controls. All content purchases must be made in/through iTunes

Google reveals One Pass, a rival content distribution system catering to publishers: a 10% cut of revenue and direct consumer access (no forced middle man).

Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission question if Apple is violating anti-trust laws with this latest policy change

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Why didn't I think of this? Of course, among other things, I don't have the stomach to deal with the legal challenges.

Today I got one of those phone calls: someone from a call center representing a trade magazine, asking me to verify my contact information for their subscriber database and as proof that I'm an actual subscriber that they can include in their circulation numbers. You've undoubtedly gotten many of these. They are as much the banes of B-to-B publishers' existence as they are annoying to subscribers.

I told the phone rep what I tell them all nowadays: I ask if they have a digital edition of their publication. If so, I ask them to switch me to it. If not, I ask them to cancel my subscription. I do this mainly as my tiny way to help the environment, as well as so that I can see what publishers are doing (or not) with digital edition technologies.

The phone rep on today's call said that the magazine in question, KM World (published by Information Today Inc.), does not offer a digital edition but that he was going to ask whether I'd be interested in one. This shows that digital editions are on more B-to-B publishers' radar screens.

Our market study of digital editions cites concern for the environment as one of the three primary factors driving growth in digital editions, particularly in B-to-B publishing (the others being lower costs and speed of delivery). Several publishers told us of their own environmental concerns as well as those of their customers and readers.

The routine subscription database update call that included a question about this is further evidence.

And yes, I also don't like getting trade publications in print because I don't want my office to be any more cluttered than it is already. Don't you?

At yesterday's Argyle Executive Forum Leadership in Media conference in NYC, I had an interesting exchange with John Suhler, founding partner and president of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, and one of the deans of media industry private equity. Suhler had just given a talk in which I was glad to hear him excoriate publishers for the lack of attention they pay to technology and digital media as part of their strategies.

After his talk, I compared figures from our just-released market study on Digital Editions with his own off-the-cuff statistics about digital revenue for publishers, and the results were rather revealing. Our study shows a large gap between the readership penetration of digital editions in consumer vs. B-to-B (vertical) publications - whereas digital B2B subscriptions have grown to 15% of overall subscriptions, the corresponding figure for consumer pubs is down to 1.4%.

Compare these subscription figures with Suhler's figures for digital revenue: 12-13% in B-to-B vs. 2-3% for consumer publications. This suggests that although digital editions are becoming a much more important ingredient in B-to-B publishers' product mix, they are not quite carrying their share of digital revenue; whereas in consumer media, they are carrying more than their share, perhaps as much as double their share.

Of course, the missing ingredient in this admittedly superficial comparison is costs. For B-to-B publishers, digital editions can provide revenues at lower costs than fancy websites with lots of interactive features. In another presentation at yesterday's conference, Andrew Heyward of interactive consultancy Marketspace/Monitor Group showed several examples of elaborate interactive websites that consumer media brands like Sports Illustrated launched in order to engage their audiences. I said to him that although these websites looked very cool, they struck me as very expensive to build, non-scalable (compared to advertising platforms like those of Google or Yahoo), and ephemeral in their appeal. He didn't disagree.

For consumer publishers, the message in the above statistics could be mixed. In our study, noted publishing technology visionary Peter Meirs of Time Inc. is bearish on digital editions for consumer media. The statistics suggest either that consumer publishers are now taking that pessimism too far and under-investing in digital editions or that they don't see a great long-term future for them. Comparisons in statistics like the above in future years will determine which of these messages is the correct one.

Well, if not dead, at least dying. Via Paid Content: IDG No Longer A Print Company; Online 35 Percent Of U.S. Publishing Revenues

IDG is no longer a print media company, declares Colin Crawford, the SVP of Online at the company, in a rather revealing post on his own blog. The trade behemoth is a private company, so this insight is a helpful one.
-- The absolute dollar growth of our online revenues now exceeds the decline in our print revenues. This occurred in the US in 2006 and in Europe during the last quarter.
-- In the US, our online revenue now accounts for over 35% of our total US publishing revenues. Next year, for many brands online revenues will be greater than print revenues, if fact they already are at some of our key brand and by 2009 – about 50% of IDG’s US revenues will come from online.
-- “Going forward IDG Communications will define itself as a web centric information company complemented by expos, events and print publications.”

The metrics are compelling, don't you think?