Inside.com

Inside
Type of site
Media & Entertainment
Available inEnglish
Founded1999
Headquarters601 West 26th Street
New York City
OwnerPowerful Media (1999–2001)
Primedia (2001)
Founder(s)Kurt Andersen, Michael Hirschorn, Deanna Brown
EditorMichael Hirschorn
Key peopleSteven Brill (from April 2001)
Employees100 (April 2001)[1]
URLinside.com
CommercialYes
LaunchedMay 2000; 24 years ago (2000-05)
Current statusDefunct (as of October 2001 (2001-10))

Inside.com was a website and trade magazine that covered "the converging worlds of entertainment, media, music and technology."[2] Launched with a great deal of hype in the spring of 2000,[3] Inside was a victim of the dot-com bubble and the early 2000s recession, and it closed down at the end of 2001. Company headquarters were in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.[4]

The magazine/website is not related to the later Jason Calacanis startup Inside.com, which focuses on delivering thematic newsletters.[5]

History

Inside.com was co-founded by Kurt Andersen, Michael Hirschorn, and Deanna Brown (calling themselves Powerful Media)[6][3] in 1999, with the announced goal of helping to "reinvent a form, not unlike magazines at the beginning of the twentieth century, or even newspapers and the novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth."[6]

The company began with $12 million in financing[7] from Jim Cramer and Flatiron Partners, and added a second round of $23 million in May 2000,[8] prompting Andersen to famously proclaim that raising money for the site was "easier than getting laid in 1969."[4][9][3]

Starting with an "all-star" staff of 72 stocked by "old media" talent from the likes of Time, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Disney, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Observer and Rolling Stone,[3] Inside.com launched in May 2000[8] as an online media news website. (Courtney Love attended the launch party.)[7]

Inside's internal "manifesto" was "Correctness. Insiderness. Juiciness. Utility. Honesty. Smartness. Go kill".[6] The site was divided into sections — "Inside Dope," "Daily Digest," "Power Index," "Ratings," "This Morning's Talk Shows," "Mogul Astrology," and "Today's Gossip";[3] subscribers were also promised data-driven lists of TV ratings, box office numbers, CD sales, and the like.[3] Subscriptions to the site were priced at $199 a year,[8][6] with an announced goal of 30,000 subscribers.[10][3]

Inside, the biweekly print magazine, launched in December 2000.[7]

The site was named Best Internet Site at the 5th Golden Satellite Awards (held in January 2001),[11] and also won the Webby for Best News Site in 2001.[12][13]

Things, however, soon turned sour for Inside. The site never got more than a few thousand subscribers, and like many other publications covering media and technology, the company couldn't figure out how to turn a profit.[6]

In April 2001, Inside.com was sold to Steven Brill/PriMedia, who immediately canceled the print magazine (after only two issues)[6] and laid off 50 staff members.[4] At the same time, Brill announced he would merge the magazine with his own Brill's Content in the fall of 2001, with the new publication to be named Inside Content.[1][4] Instead, Inside editor-in-chief Hirschorn left in July,[10] and Inside itself closed down in October 2001, as Brill dissolved his partnership with PriMedia.[14]

Notable staff and contributors

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Kelly, Keith J. (3 April 2001). "Brill's Bloodbath – Inside Mag to Shutter, up to 50 to be Axed". New York Post. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  2. ^ Hill, Julianne. "Kurt Anderson: Co-chair of Inside.com: Kurt Andersen, co-chair of the hot Internet site Inside.com, founder of Spy magazine and author of the best-selling novel Turn of the Century talks about his career here," Writer's Digest (2000).
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Kurtz, Howard (May 3, 2000). "Point and Clique". Washington Post.
  4. ^ a b c d Snyder, Gabriel. "Brill’s Contented: Inside.com Merger Feeds His Big Maw," Observer (April 9, 2001).
  5. ^ Mazarakis, Shontell, Anna, Alyson (2017-08-03). "How a founder went from being worth millions to -$10,000 almost overnight — then rebounded to a $100 million fortune". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-10-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ a b c d e f Helmore, Edward (9 June 2001). "The downside to Inside.com: They were the new chroniclers of the net age, but online magazines like Inside.com are being spiked". The Guardian.
  7. ^ a b c Sicha, Choire. "Bubbles, Crashes and Burns: 15 Lessons from 10 Years Ago," The Awl (May 25, 2011).
  8. ^ a b c Wolff, Michael. "The Insiders," New York (May 29, 2000).
  9. ^ Moneybox. "Inside.com: Size Matters," Slate (July 18, 2000).
  10. ^ a b Kuczynski, Alex. "Editor in Chief Of Inside.com Steps Down," New York Times (July 25, 2001).
  11. ^ "Satellite Awards for 2001". Internet Movie Database. IMDb. May 17, 2017. imdb.com. Retrieved May 17, 2017.
  12. ^ Vickers, Amy (19 July 2001). "Web 'Oscars' results announced". The Guardian.
  13. ^ "Webby Winner: Websites and Mobile Sites: News 2001". Retrieved January 21, 2023.
  14. ^ Barringer, Felicity (16 October 2001). "Brill's Content Closes; Web Site, Inside.com, Is Cut Back". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  15. ^ Bierbaum bio in the Legion of Super-Heroes Online Companion: Volume 5. Archived 2007-10-04 at the Wayback Machine Accessed September 15, 2008.
  16. ^ "February 24, 2006". The Hot Button. Retrieved 2011-05-17.
  17. ^ Lyman, Rick (15 April 2001). "Stumbling Toward A Theater Near You". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  18. ^ Motoko, Rich (January 26, 2009). "Top Editor at Publishers Weekly Is Laid Off". The New York Times: Arts. Retrieved 2010-10-05.
  19. ^ Parloff, Roger (2000-09-24). "Coughing It Up". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-03-30.
  20. ^ "Erik Wemple". Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Brief biography in the People Directory of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) (incl. hyperlinked archive to "In the News" articles by and about Wemple and his AAN award and honorable mention.)

Sources