Business 2.0 May Soon Die

According to a story in today's New York Times, tech biz magazine Business 2.0 is on the verge of closure. Ad revenue is down sharply, and the blame is being laid on Time Inc., which consolidated its sales force recently, giving Business 2.0 short shrift.

This is all very sad. Unlike many print magazines, Business 2.0 took the Web seriously, and its site sports a number of frequently updated Blogs which do a good job of covering biz tech. Unfortunately, these little jewels are buried deep within an overcrowded CNN/Money/Business 2.0 site which, like the long-dead Pathfinder, does its best to hide the good stuff beyond a wall.

Business 2.0's Blogs could probably generate good ad revenue for Business 2.0 if they were better monetized (right now, the banner running appears to be untargeted RON (Run of Network) ads booked through Advertising.com, a Time-Warner subsidiary). Why not target text ads specifically to Business 2.0's content?

I used to work for Business 2.0's editor, Josh Quittner, and he's a very smart guy who understands that you can have a great idea, execute it well, and still get it all smushed up by clueless suits. Let's hope that he's able to spin off the online assets of Business 2.0 and get them away from Time Inc's corporate bureaucrats, who can't produce anything but grief.