Business 2.0 Bites the Dust

After some spotty speculation it has been announced that Time, Inc. will cease production of Business 2.0, a magazine about "the new economy." Bought in 2001 for more than 30 million dollars, many found Time's purchase  of Business 2.0 to be perplexing, like Nashville blogger and B2B publisher Rex Hammock, who writes:

[B]y July 2001, the reality of the dot.com bust had sunk-in for most folks, but not, apparently, Time Inc. Time’s “eCompany Now” (blast-from-the-past, huh? — how sad is this: eCompany Now doesn’t even have an entry on Wikipedia) then was merged with Business 2.0, as Business 2.0 had a more-established brand and circulation (and Wikipedia entry). The problem was and is, they never saw the advertisers return — and two-months after the purchase was 9/11/2001. It was not a smart purchase, however, the folks at Time were making all sorts of not-smart decisions at the time, so this was the least of their bungles.

As Rex notes, the NY Times is reporting that ten staffers from Business 2.0 will be heading to the Fortune headquarters to help with that magazine's technology coverage. Good news for Fortune, I guess.

This latest death leaves the web savvy to wonder: Are people hanging their proverbial hats on this "2.0" thing, much like they did before the dot-com crumble? Media outlet, e-commerce sites and other internet industries can't stop talking about those magic numbers, as if the mystical "2.0" will pull them out of the red. Everyone wants their site built in "2.0." Everyone wants to get on the "2.0" train. But does anyone really and truly know what it means?

I'll be interested to see how rival Fast Company does after Business 2.0's wake. Commenters at TechCrunch seem sad to see the rag go, yet none of them mention Fast Company, though they do mention Inc. Interesting.

Comments

[Matt Keegan]

I forgot about Fast Company, I'll have to visit them again to see how it compares with Business 2.0.

Inc. is okay, but it seems a bit to polished to me. Forbes is a favorite and it'll be interesting to see how much of Business 2.0 rubs off on them with 10 employees making the jump.

[kenklec]

Some of the staff are moving to FORTUNE magazine, not Forbes.

[brittney]

Oops! Thanks for the correction.