The Industry Standard: Dot.Com Glossy

Every Friday night outside a four-story brick building in downtown San Francisco, a line of people winds around the block to get into one of the city's most happening parties. It's not a hip dance club--it's the weekly rooftop fete held by The Industry Standard, an upstart weekly that bills itself as "the newsmagazine of the Internet economy." What draws attendees to the Standard's cocktail party is the same phenomenon drawing readers and advertisers to the magazine, the desire to get the inside track on an overwhelming, giddy revolution. Free drinks help, too.

By offering a glossy magazine, a daily news Web site, a swatch of free e-mail newsletters, plus the occasional conference, the 19-month-old Standard is one of a slew of new and old magazines vying to become the primary read for Webheads (table). What sets it apart, says John L. Battelle, its president and CEO, is that many of its top journalists are from the mainstream press and its target audience is executives responsible for Internet strategies rather than folks toiling in the computer room. "Rather than a culture or a technology story," says Battelle, "we decided the Internet is a business story."