April 1998 – The Industry Standard is launched. Fueled by Internet company advertising, it lasts until late 2001.
The Industry Standard would come to illustrate the dramatic rise and precipitous fall of many Internet companies. Launched in April 1998, the weekly magazine chronicled what was happening on the Web at a breathtaking speed and within a year was publishing 200-plus page issues. Internet companies clamored for attention – and coverage – from its reporters. “For the magazine’s veteran journalists, accustomed to banging on the doors of people who expressly did not want their story told, the unrelenting flack attacks and rock-star treatment constituted a disconcerting role reversal,” wrote one senior editor.
Even after the NASDAQ market, where virtually all public Internet stocks were traded, crashed in April 2000, the magazine and its staff kept on covering the industry as if everything were still all right. The magazines remained thick with ads until the end of the year, but by January 2001, the magazine starting laying off workers. By August of that year, the magazine had ceased publication.
There were other magazines that suffered a similar fate. Business 2.0 was sold to AOL Time Warner, but its subscribers were simply shifted to eCompany and the magazine was shuttered. Red Herring, another Internet publication, also closed its doors after publishing its March 2003 edition. Upside, yet another magazine, also failed. Fast Company remained in existence in 2005, but it had been sold twice – the second time for about one-tenth of what it fetched in 2000 during its most prosperous times.