Industry Standard opens its doors again online

The Industry Standard launched a new format on the Internet to provide analysis of the Internet economy. The new service appeared ten years after the original launch of the weekly print in 1998. The magazine stopped its existence three years later due to the appearance of similar sources on the Internet.

Photo: Industry Standard opens its doors again online

The Industry Standard saved revenues of $140 million in 2000 and created more advertising pages than any other magazine. In 2001 its revenues dropped to $40 million. The magazine eventually closed down in August 2001.

The staff of the magazine still includes 180 employees. Its website, http://www.thestandard.com will go live on Monday. The parent company of the Industry Standard, the International Data Group (located in Boston) will handle the advertising sales. It is a publisher of more than 300 magazines which provide the extensive coverage of latest technological developments, digital entertainment and video games.

The Internet Economy refers to conducting business through markets whose infrastructure is based on the Internet and World-Wide Web. An Internet economy differs from a traditional economy in a number of ways, including: communication, market segmentation, distribution costs, and price.

businesses cannot avoid the Internet economy. They must recognize and understand that there are both global opportunities available as well as risks of not participating. They note that through the Internet, any participant in a value chain can usurp the role of any other participant.

Due to the enormous quantity of connected users, the incredible speed that information travels, and the irrelevance of distance, firms can offer goods and services not locally, but to potential customers across the entire globe. As stated by Gregory Mankiw (2003) Advances in information technology, such as the Internet, have been profound and have influenced many parts of the economy.