Spanfeller Media Group, which plans to launch a series of new sites, is close to finishing a funding round that I’m told will total around $2 million. Backers include RRE Ventures, Greenhill SAVP, SoftBank and Lerer Media Ventures.

Once the deal is done, sources say, Spanfeller’s plan is to roll out a series of industry-specific “verticals.” First up: Food.

Aren’t there plenty of food sites out there already? You’d think so, but Spanfeller and his backers figure there’s room for more. After that, they have a list of categories to tackle, with the exception of five they think are overpopulated: News, business/finance, entertainment, traditional sports and technology. Spanfeller declined to comment.

When Spanfeller left Forbes last summer after eight-plus years at the site, his initial plan was to create a sort of repair shop for established publishers’ Web properties. That made sense, given that that’s essentially what he did for the Forbes family when he took over their Web site in 2001. But the new plan is to create stuff from scratch.

Within the Web publishing industry, Spanfeller gets lots of credit for moving Forbes.com from also-ran status into one of the biggest finance sites on the Web. And he gets a fair amount of derision as well, for both a blustery style and a lusty embrace of page views. His most infamous gambit, used more than once: A slideshow detailing the world’s “Top Topless Beaches.”

But the collapse of the last tech bubble and the realization the Web publishing economics require lots and lots and lots of scale have brought many other Web publishers much closer to Spanfeller’s tactics than they’d like to admit. His new challenge: Re-creating that scale with brand new properties.

Dvorkin’s old company tried to build a platform for free-lance bloggers, paying each contributor a small per-piece payment based on traffic and other goals (here’s Walt Mossberg’s review of the site, from 2009). Forbes COO Tim Forbes, whose company owned a 20 percent stake in True/Slant, tells me the publisher will use True/Slant in some way. But what he’s really buying here is Dvorkin, who had previously worked for the magazine in the late 1990s before heading to AOL (AOL).

“I’m tremendously excited to have Lewis come aboard as chief product officer. That’s the core message,” Forbes says. He adds that he hadn’t thought he would buy True/Slant when he brought Dvorkin on to overhaul his Web site and magazine this spring, though it seems as if the idea didn’t come completely from out of the blue. “It wasn’t planned because we didn’t know how things will play out.”

All right. So how’s Forbes Media doing, anyway (disclosure: I worked for Forbes for 10 years)?

Okay-ish, Forbes ventures. He says his family company is still looking for a “very senior executive” to fill the place of Jim Berrien, Forbes magazine’s former publisher, and Jim Spanfeller, who ran the Forbes Web site. That job search, which has been running since last summer, is for a single position.

And the business itself? “Business improves,” Forbes says. “The world heals, and we’re seeing real improvements in order flow. Things are getting better.”

Here’s the release:

Lewis Dvorkin to Lead All Forbes Editorial Areas as Chief Product Officer

The Company to Acquire True/Slant

New York, New York (May 25, 2010) – Forbes announced today that it had agreed in principle to acquire True/Slant, a unique, web-based, news platform company. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Lewis Dvorkin of True/Slant will be joining Forbes to lead all editorial areas at Forbes as Chief Product Officer effective June 1.

Mr. Dvorkin started consulting with Forbes in April of this year. He had been Executive Editor of the Forbes magazine from December 1996 to April 2000. In his new capacity Mr. Dvorkin will be creating and implementing many new initiatives in the editorial product and the engagement of Forbes’s audiences. He will be charged with re-architecting the Forbes.com website; redesigning the magazine; and will assume responsibility for all editorial product across Forbes.

In making the announcement Tim Forbes, President and COO said: “These times demand new models for delivering information and engaging audiences and for the ways we run our business.

“Lewis Dvorkin, a seasoned journalist (including a previous stint with Forbes), a business entrepreneur and founder of True/Slant, and a social media pioneer is the ideal leader for Forbes editorial vision and products at this stage.

“Forbes mission and message will not change. There will be new opportunities for people inside Forbes; new opportunities for audiences to have a deeper relationship with Forbes; and new opportunities for marketers to engage with our important audiences.”

“To participate and lead Forbes into its next stage of media life is truly exciting,” said Mr. Dvorkin. ”Forbes is a trusted brand with deep and specific meaning to those interested in information that inspires and enables them to succeed and to create wealth.”  He continued, “With all of Forbes’s great experts, the wealth of Forbes data, and its real-time web features, we have a unique ability to stimulate the social media conversation. Our journalists, producers, audiences, marketers and all variety of entrepreneurs will be engaged as they never have been before with one another. Forbes is stepping ahead of everyone on this one.”

Mr. Dvorkin brings to this new position thirty-five years experience in both old and new media platforms. Besides his years at Forbes, Mr. Dvorkin was Page One Editor of The Wall Street Journal, a Senior Editor at Newsweek, and an editor at The New York Times. After leaving Forbes, Mr. Dvorkin was Senior Vice President, Programming at AOL, where he was responsible for News, Sports and Network Programming and played a significant role in the launch of TMZ.com.

Forbes Media encompasses Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, the #1 business site on the Web that reaches on average more than 18 million people monthly. The company publishes Forbes and Forbes Asia, which together reach a worldwide audience of more than 6 million readers. It also publishes ForbesLife and ForbesWoman magazines, in addition to licensee editions in China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia and Turkey.

That’s a bit weird because DVorkin already has a day job: He’s the founder and CEO of True/Slant, a news network/aggregator/publisher he launched last year.

And it makes sense given that Forbes Media is one of True/Slant’s financial backers. Employees there say COO Tim Forbes has been particularly enamored of True/Slant’s low-cost, high-frequency approach to content generation, so you can read into this move what you will.

DVorkin started showing up at editorial meetings this week, I’m told. I’m also told that both Forbes magazine editor Bill Baldwin and Forbes.com editor Paul Maidment are reporting to him. “All I know is that it means we failed to fix our own problems,” an employee there tells me.

Disclosure: I worked for Forbes for 10 years and worked closely with DVorkin for a couple of those years. He’s smart and a bit scary. His former colleagues at AOL (AOL), where he landed after his stint at Forbes, almost always describe him as “quite a character.”

Reached for comment, DVorkin referred me to a Forbes spokeswoman. But did want me to make clear that he’s still running True/Slant. “I’m the CEO and founder of True/Slant, and we’re having out best month ever.”

Here’s Forbes’s statement:

Lewis DVorkin will be consulting on a redesign of Forbes.com and other editorial areas at Forbes Media.

Though he will be devoting time to this assignment, Mr. DVorkin remains the Chief Executive Officer of True/Slant, an original content news network, which he founded in April 2009. Forbes Media is a strategic investor in True/Slant.

Mr. DVorkin brings to this assignment vast experience in both old and new media platforms and a history with Forbes editorial. He was the Executive Editor at Forbes magazine from December 1996 to April 2000. where he spearheaded that magazine’s redesign, managed the annual Forbes 400 Richest Americans list and created the Celebrity 100 list, both internationally recognized products of Forbes magazine.

During his career Mr. DVorkin was Page One Editor of The Wall Street Journal, a Senior Editor at Newsweek and an editor at the New York Times.

After leaving Forbes, Mr. Dvorkin was Senior Vice President, Programming at AOL, where he was responsible for News, Sports and Network Programming and played a significant role in the launch of TMZ.com.

Here’s the memo Forbes distributed to his staff this afternoon:

Various media outlets today noted that Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners has stepped off the Forbes Media board and that this portends an imminent round of additional cuts. It does not.

Cutting costs has been necessary at Forbes and virtually every other company in response to the unprecedented economic downturn. We are doing what is necessary for Forbes to get through these difficult times. It is critical to remember, however, that while coping with current conditions, we are also pursuing new initiatives, the latest being ForbesWoman. We are actively examining a number of other new ventures.

Forbes continues to outperform its competitors. The brand is stronger today worldwide than ever before. In a few days I am going to India for the launch of Forbes India, our eleventh local edition and the first of its kind in India. No other business brand has a larger worldwide audience offline and online. At 5.4 million, readership of Forbes Magazine itself is at an all-time high, and Forbes Digital attracts some 40 million unique visitors each month.

Let us also remember that in 2001-2002 in the aftermath of the tech bubble bursting, and particularly after 9/11, magazine advertising plunged. We had to take many painful steps at that time as well. There were many who said we should shut down the then money-losing Forbes.com. We did not, and it went on to great success. Now, just as then, we are contending with crisis but also planting seeds of our future success.

As for the Forbes Media board, several Elevation partners have rotated on it. Bret Pearlman has been involved from day one.  And Roger McNamee is still very much engaged with the company, particularly web strategy and technology.

We fully understand the concerns that the present difficult environment causes. We want to thank everyone for their hard work. We profoundly believe that the steps being taken, not only short-term painful ones, but also new growth initiatives, will make Forbes stronger than ever when economic recovery comes.

McNamee, who spearheaded Elevation’s purchase of 40 percent of Forbes Media in 2006, tells the New York Post’s Keith Kelly that his company’s original thesis–that Forbes’s fast-growing Web site would offset its declining magazine business–”has proved to be wrong for reasons that are no fault of Forbes.” More from McNamee:

“The deterioration in the advertising market late last year caused Forbes and Elevation to agree that we could no longer count on Forbes.com to offset declines in print. We agreed to a strategy shift from investment in the Web to aggressive cost cutting.”

As part of that shift, McNamee will be replaced by Elevation’s Bret Pearlman, who has a reputation as an aggressive cost-cutter.

Said McNamee of Pearlman’s appointment: “Elevation’s cost-cutting team happens to be in New York, so swapping Bret in and me out was an obvious play. I remain engaged in strategy and Web technology at Forbes.

I asked Forbes for comment this morning and got back this statement:

Several Elevation partners have rotated on the Forbes Media board. Bret Pearlman, while not formally a member of the board previously, has been involved from day one.  Roger is still very much engaged with the company, particularly web strategy and technology. Cutting costs, while painful, has been necessary at Forbes and virtually every other media company in response to the unprecedented economic downturn. We and Elevation believe that Forbes is well placed to ride out the present market and emerge in a very strong position when the recovery comes.

It’s possible that Forbes’s woes exist in a vacuum, or at least in a vacuum specific to the business magazine sector, which has already seen one title–Condé Nast’s Portfolio–shutter this year. But I don’t think so.

Which means we’ll see even more pressure at Time Warner (TWX) to cut costs at publisher Time Inc. People familiar with Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes’s thinking tell me he would like to spin off the publishing unit in the next year once he’s finished cleaving AOL from the company. If that’s the case, he’ll want to clean up the magazine business as much as possible before putting it on the market.

I don’t have further details on the Forbes cuts other than to note that some of what you’ve read at other sites about power grabs and such is inaccurate. If the Forbes folks pass along a statement to me, I’ll run it. Here’s the memo Forbes CEO Steve Forbes circulated to his staff today detailing the furlough, etc:

This is a very painful message. It is no secret that the economy is in a deep contraction and that the media business in particular has been especially hard hit. While we are doing better than our peers, our business has been adversely affected. Because of this, it has been necessary to take certain measures.

A number of our colleagues were laid off over the last two days across all areas of the business. This is due to the unprecedented economic environment we find ourselves in today and the need for ongoing reorganization of the company in response to the enormous technological changes affecting media.

Other measures we are taking include suspending the 401K matching contribution. There will be salary reductions for anyone making over $100,000, amounting to 10% of the increment over $100,000, starting with the April 1 pay period.

Everyone will take a week long furlough with no pay. You should talk to your manager about scheduling this furlough. HR will be sending you further information with regard to this furlough in a separate communication. This is not part of the vacation time you have accrued from service at the company.

These are serious and unfortunate steps, but we believe they are necessary and sadly unavoidable.

We deeply appreciate all that you do every day for the company and hope that in the months to come there will be a real positive turn in the economy.

Meanwhile, Condé Nast, which laid off some of its secretaries yesterday, has let go of a reported 20 people at its Condé Nast Digital group. A spokesperson says the “streamlining” is a result of the reorganization of Web properties it made earlier this year. At the time, Condé said that reorg would not result in layoffs.

Forbes Media has begun a new round of layoffs and will let go of more than 50 people on its editorial and business teams, I’m told. The cuts are roughly proportional to the ones the business publication made in November and January when it consolidated its Web and magazine operations.

During the last round of cuts, Forbes attributed at least some of the layoffs to the integration of the two staffs. This time around, there can’t be any reason beyond the fact that the miserable economy has been especially rough on magazines in general and business titles specifically.

I’ve asked Forbes officials for details and will update if I get any. (Disclosure: I’m a former Forbes employee.) UPDATE: The layoffs took two days, but appear to be over. Employees who kept their jobs will see pay cuts in the form of mandatory unpaid furloughs, and higher-paid employees will get additional pay cuts.

The question for the rest of the industry: How many other publishers will have to make a second round of cuts themselves? Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend has already warned his troops about cost cuts that will likely include layoffs; earlier this month Rodale shuttered its Best Life title. Both publishers also made cuts last fall.

Unheard from so far: Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc., which cut about 600 positions last fall. Those layoffs–roughly six percent of the publisher’s payroll–were larger than anything Time had experienced before. So far that seems to have been enough to weather the storm.

This morning Nina Link, the CEO of Magazine Publishers of America, presented a state-of-the-industry talk for a conference call hosted by J.P. Morgan, as part of its “virtual advertising & marketing summit.”

Don’t worry if you missed it–the accompanying slides, which I’ve embedded below, do a good job of summing up Link’s presentation. And I can do the same in a couple sentences: Things aren’t great, but they could be worse. And they’ve got to get better: People like magazines!

I actually agree with part of Link’s thesis: People do like magazines, and will continue to do so. In fact, the more time I spend creating and consuming online content, the more value I see in print titles. They’re a refreshing break from the relentless crush of the Web, which tends to make really good stuff read and feel just the same as really bad stuff.

Also, as my old employer and current Forbes Media investor, Roger McNamee, likes to point out, you can read magazines on the toilet.

But none of that changes the real problem magazines face, which isn’t going away: Publishers rely on advertising for most of their revenue, and advertisers are increasingly moving their money to the Web.

And almost none of the publishers have figured out how what to do about that–Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc., which has been perhaps the most aggressive about getting on the Internet, gets only 10 percent of its revenue from the Web.

Surely more will follow suit, but when they do, they’ll face a new problem: The clichéd-but-true “analog dollars for digital pennies” phenomenon, which means that the same content becomes much less valuable once you move it from print to the Web.

But you’ve heard plenty about that and will continue to hear about it going forward, and I promised you the bull case. So here you go. Click on “full screen” button to make this pitch legible and right arrow button to page through the presentation.

MPA presentation – Free Legal Forms

[Image Credit: dickuhne]