Business Insight Zone

Around the time I joined the Hoover’s editorial staff, waaaaay back in the autumn of 2000, there were seven — count ‘em, seven — magazines dedicated to the online world of business. (Ahh, those heady bubble days . . .) Let’s see if I can call them from memory:

1. Business 2.0
2. eCompany Now
3. Fast Company
4. The Industry Standard
5. Red Herring
6. Upside
7. Wired

My personal favorite was The Industry Standard, which promptly folded late in 2001. Upside joined it in oblivion in 2002. Wired, which wasn’t quite the oldest but can really be considered the godfather of the genre, is still chugging along, and Fast Company seems revivified under the ownership of Mansueto Ventures. Red Herring, which in the fall of 2000 was running issues as thick with advertising as a bridal magazine, stopped issuing a print version, but has now been reborn as an online news venue. Time Inc. folded its eCompany Now into the previously-independent Business 2.0 and the name of the later magazine, which had already won awards.

I’m thinking of all this now because Business 2.0 may not be long for this world. According to this piece from the New York Times, ad sales are down so sharply at B2.0 that the title may be folded later this year. I can’t say I’d cry or cheer at the demise of the magazine, which in general I enjoy. But it would make me nostalgic for the days of the bubble, when seven — count ‘em, seven — magazines were needed to chronicle the hype.