It's Video Time

The world’s biggest magazine publisher has seen the future — and it moves.

After hundreds of employees were axed in recent months in wave after wave of layoffs, and most recently, shuttering Life Magazine today (for the third second, and presumably last, time) Time Inc. held a show-and-tell of digital properties for the media today.

The centerpiece of the strategy going forward is online properties, and central to that is video, video, and more video. “We’re going to have the ability to compete with the broadcast networks for scale,” said EVP John Squires. Time intends to “compete for TV ad dollars,” and is throwing considerable weight behind the claim.

Last November, Paul Speaker, a former president of RKO Pictures and a seasoned independent film industry executive, was tasked with founding Time Inc. studios. He’s busy constructing two sounds stages in the Time building, an equipment library for journalists, editing bays, and satellite uplinks to Birmingham, Ala. and London to “help the brands deliver on their video strategies. “More and more advertisers are requiring Time to include a video component in its proposals,” Speaker said.

Another interesting development is CNNMoney‘s new personalized quotes homepage. It’s built in AJAX and hence, eschewing pageviews. “We’re killing the refresh button,” said executives, who hope real-time, constantly updating quotes will help them go up against the 500 lb. gorilla in the space, Yahoo Finance. The property hopes the page will engender enough loyalty to drive traffic elsewhere on the site.

There’s more to tell — I’ll look at Time Warner’s strategy more deeply in my Friday column.