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Since then, the online-content industry has only become more hardscrabble. Caught between slower-than-expected growth and disgruntled investors loath to keep their checkbooks open, many sites have filed for bankruptcy or laid off significant numbers of workers. Digital Entertainment Network, Salon, Oxygen Media, APBNews.com, and MTVi are just a few of the content companies that have seen troubled times. It wouldn't be surprising to see Inside.com get mowed down by the same Darwinian forces. Still, you have to give the upstart credit where it's due. Six months after its launch, Inside.com has created a successful new-media brand and established itself as a credible information source chronicling the evolution of media and entertainment in the New Economy. The site publishes a daily mix of enterprising stories on different facets of the content industry, such as film, TV, music, and books. That shouldn't be too surprising given the number of talented journalists it raided from established publications. But in a media-drenched culture like ours, it's an accomplishment all the same. Inside.com is not the type of publication your mother would know about. But it serves its own cliquish constituency well. It does a fine job of digging up the small scoop. For example, the site published the first interview with Napster attorney David Boies and broke the earth-shattering news that high-profile entertainment site Pop.com had just laid off virtually its entire staff. And get this: Inside.com reported that Survivor winner Richard Hatch was actually pitching a book proposal about his experience on the popular CBS show! BACK TO THE FUTURE? But a good brand does not equal a good business. So far, the site claims to have several hundred-thousand unique users, but it won't disclose the exact number of insiders who have ponied up $19.95 per month, or $199 a year. Now Inside.com is getting ready to launch a revamped version of the site in the next few weeks. Inside.com version 2.0 aims to follow through on the ballyhooed site's original promise to provide access to heavy-duty, real-time industry data -- tracking the status of TV pilots, film scripts, and book proposals, for example. Right now, the site's database offerings are scattershot and hard to find and navigate. Editor-in-Chief Michael Hirschorn says Inside.com has licensed 25 databases, some of which will be integrated into the newly designed site. But the new long-term strategy is old-school. In a sign that its initial Web-only strategy was doomed to fail, Inside.com announced on Aug. 22 that it would roll out a print version to be jointly published with New Economy magazine The Industry Standard. Due to hit newsstands later this year, it will go weekly in early 2001. The Industry Standard "is the model of a successful media company," says Hirschorn, who, like many media mavens, is amazed that the two-year-old magazine is on track this year to generate $150 million to $200 million in revenue. "It's mind-blowing," he marvels. Inside.com will need that kind of cash. The company has about 80 staffers and plans to add at least 30 more to run the print counterpart. That means the company is coming perilously close to violating one of its founders' maxims: "Don't build a 100,000-seat soccer stadium in Des Moines." That was the way Kurt Andersen, co-chairman of Powerful Media, Inside.com's parent company, put it in a June 12 Inside.com column that outlined his arguments and strategy for building a successful new-media company. Andersen's point was that since old-media concepts take a long time to reach profitability, new-media companies shouldn't spend like crazy in anticipation of quick returns. With Inside.com apparently set to switch strategy in midstream, it would be well-served to dredge up that column and heed its lessons. Ante covers the Internet for Business Week in New York |
