Industry Standard folds.

August 20, 2001 5:21 PM

Industry Standard folds. I knew this was coming, and yet it's still unbelievable. How could such a cool publication (and even cooler automated e-mails) call it quits so fast? I think the sky really is falling. And Welcome back, y'all.
posted by ParisParamus (12 comments total)

Well for one, thing they're slow with the news. Almost every other single outlet of print media has reported on this, and yet, the Industry Standard has yet to run one story or expose. Sloth, I say!

Seriously though, I think the Standard has become a useless piece of marketing drivel. There are so few really good stories there anymore, but of course, that might be because there's very little "good" stuff to report. Just my opinion tho.
posted by fooljay at 5:51 PM on August 20, 2001

I subscribed for six months or so in 1999 solely for Carl's backpage column. Then he stopped doing it.

It came weekly, which seemed too often for that much material, and this was in the pre-phone book sized days. I guess it was always more timely on their site and I didn't feel the need to renew.
posted by mathowie at 6:00 PM on August 20, 2001

Anyone else get a good laugh at the irony of the Industry Standard folding, or is it just me? Almost like an Onion story about the new economy, without the intentional sarcasm.
posted by msacheson at 6:14 PM on August 20, 2001

I still think they have (or had, if you prefer), the best name in the history of business publications. But the main thing I'll miss is Media Grok.
posted by jjg at 7:08 PM on August 20, 2001

Media Grok seems like it may have some sort of half-life. See Guterman's final article before it's gone: "Goodbye", and his site - guterman.com has a sign-up sheet for those interested in its future.
posted by kokogiak at 10:53 PM on August 20, 2001

I just saw the last print edition, and judging from what I flicked through, the Standard deserves to die. The design has gone down the tube, the content isn't there any more. And quite obviously, the advertisers aren't there either. It served its purpose, its time is over.
posted by holgate at 5:45 AM on August 21, 2001

huh. my dad gave me the magazine about six months ago and told me that i should look for work there. the mag was great for covering what it was to cover. now that there isn't much for it to cover, well, there isn't much left for it to do. like holgate said: It served its purpose, its time is over.
posted by adampsyche at 5:50 AM on August 21, 2001

There's most definitely plenty left to cover, it's just that people don't want to read about it anymore.

Why is it that so many people now seem to assume that because the dotcom bubble burst (as it was always going to do) that all that new technology suddenly went away and no longer exists? There are still dotcoms out there and some of them even make money, there is still a whole complete new technology industry out there and it will continue on. It's not just about the internet folks.

However, because idiots paid ridiculous prices for ridiculous stocks and then, unsurprisingly, lost their dough it seems that the solution is to pretend it didn't happen and doesn't exist. Hence, the demise of The Industry Standard can, in part, be attributed to the "I don't want to know, I don't want to know.....see no evil, hear no evil" factor.

I, for one, will miss 'em.
posted by Option1 at 7:23 AM on August 21, 2001

well, the web site is still operational, if skeletal. but, if you take a look at salon and others, such as the company my dad works for, advertising revenues are taking a hit. it really isn't so much about the content being focused on the web, i guess that is more of a coincidence if anything. but the $ for advertising isn't there, and lots of content companies have seriously downsized. there is stuff to cover, but the industry has fallen off its pink cloud, and brought a lot of related industries down with it.
posted by adampsyche at 7:29 AM on August 21, 2001

Option1: I don't think the Standard was ever about what the tech industry did, as such; it was more concerned with what the 'new economy' was as a cultural phenomenon. (For tech, there's still Wired, even though the quarterly golf equipment reviews makes me shudder.) The Standard was meta from the start -- that's why Carl's column was part of it, I think -- it was a chronicler of the parties, the Aeron chairs, the babyfoot tables, the 'should I let my geeks bring their dogs to work?' quandries that defined the business culture, and that culture is no longer there. It has all the relevance now of an Iranian party culture magazine in 1980.
posted by holgate at 9:28 AM on August 21, 2001

Might a somewhat more descriptive name assured...a few more months?
posted by ParisParamus at 10:14 AM on August 21, 2001

I agree in part holgate. The industry still exists it's just that people don't want to read about what it's up to (as opposed to what it produces) and where it stands in the scheme of the economy.

As a business magazine, I also thought The Industry Standard wasn't too bad. Certainly, I've found it useful over the past few years and, unlike you, think that it's still particularly relevant as a chronicler of that spectrum of the economy.

Where it was wrong, as were (and still are) it's competitors such as Red Eye and Business 2.0, was in it's claims about what the "New Economy" was and what it would mean for the future.
posted by Option1 at 10:54 AM on August 21, 2001