Word: standardizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...plains are littered with the bodies of pioneering publications like Internet Business, the Web, the Net and Virtual City. So it's all the more remarkable that a 22-month-old weekly called the Industry Standard is already living up to its moniker. Based in San Francisco and owned by Boston computer trade publisher IDG, the Standard set out in April 1998 to grab Internet business readers by appropriating the authority of a newsweekly--right down to the red banner and text-heavy layout. Says former design director Daniel Carter: "We wanted to come out and sound like we knew...
...worked. What emerged over the next two years was a hypersmart and sassy voice that does for Silicon Valley and Alley what CNBC did for Wall Street. Knowing what you're talking about counts for a lot in a world of shrieking dotcom hype, and the Standard cut through the noise with speed, exuberance, minimal jargon and a dash of self-deprecating humor. Advertisers ate it up, and the Standard got very fat very quickly. Issue No. 1 had an anemic 25 pages of ads; now they frequently top 200. Ad revenues rose from less than $2 million...
They got there largely by giving the store away. Nearly 60% of the Standard's 150,000 circulation goes to subscribers who don't pay a cent. Still, the subscribers do dish out the kind of personal financial details that make marketers salivate--especially when the readers' average net worth is $1.4 million. Whether they can be persuaded to part with a bit of that cash for a subscription remains to be seen...
Like many of the start-ups it covers, the Standard is living at warp speed. Its offices are crowded with foosball tables and video-game machines. It recently got $30 million in venture capital to expand its empire (new magazines, new websites, new conferences) in return for a 15% stake in the company. It's contemplating an IPO. And on Friday night the line for its weekly rooftop party--already a San Francisco institution--stretches round the corner...
...Standard is not alone in benefiting from our e-crazy times. The $16 billion business-publishing market is set to reach $25 billion by 2003. The more established monthly Red Herring will break even for the first time this year. Its editor, Tony Perkins, doubts his younger rival can stay afloat if the money dries up. "We shouldn't assume dotcom advertising is going to be around forever," he says. "It'll be hard to sustain a weekly deadwood publication...