Comments on: Business2.Gone

By: berlin

berlin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:41:49 +0000

i stop subscribing for a year or two after the bust. but i’ve been reading Business2 right from the beginning and even have the first issue still sealed.}

By: jdee

jdee — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:30:46 +0000

Santosh -

We weren’t given any advice in particular from AOL/Time-Warner during the build-up and finalization of the sale. It was fairly clear during the negotiations that they were simply buying our name and subscriber list (then at 350,000) and would fold it into ECompany Now, a magazine they offered about the New Economy. Then, the combined package would be called Business 2.0. Most of the original staff that built B2 were not offered positions in the new organization. I think that about three (out of 40-45) staffers made the move over to AOL/T-W.

As a friend of mine in the M&A business says, “there are no mergers; only acquisitions.”

Jim}

By: jeffc

jeffc — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:27:07 +0000

I used to be a reader and a subscriber but not in several years. I think it’s not because of content – it’s a paper problem. The business model for print pubs is under extreme pressure, and in this case, the very audience of this magazine is the same one pushing the world on-line. Ironic that that a print pub catering to the on-line crowd would fail to make the very transition it promotes?

Maybe the Web2.0 community can reincarnate Business 3.0.}

By: santosh

santosh — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 00:49:55 +0000

Sad news. I started my startup journey with B2.0.

In retrospect, what kind of advice did you get when you were offered to by Time/Warner to buy?

- Santosh}

By: robintbd

robintbd — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:05:55 +0000

Honestly, I am not a reader of the magazine. But Time Inc. threw my baby — Parenting Magazine — out with its bathwater this year. They sold it at a fire sale price (still over $100 MM, but the profits are less than half the $20MM it formerly earned) after years of neglect and the complete miss of the online opportunity. So I understand your emotions perhaps better than most.}

By: macrunch

macrunch — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:11:08 +0000

Good memories dig up. It reminds me about alot of things that I started up last time.}

By: fusionworks

fusionworks — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:36:16 +0000

Business 2.0 is awesome! This is terrible news! Several start-ups, Fortune500 companies, consultants, VCs, and Angels I deal with all say they use the magazine for biz dev, research, and biz model justification. B2.0 fills the white space between Inc/Entrepreneur and Forbes/Fortune/BizWeek.

Yes, it is painful for a founder to see his “baby” die. 18 months after I left my “baby”, the “stewards” took the company from 8-figures in annual sales to ZERO. The death of Business 2.0 is doubly painful to me.}