Sex has been extraordinarily popular on computer screens, not just the highly profitable X-rated sites but tamer fare from such outlets as Playboy and Nerve magazine. While few news operations are making money from their online sites, writing about the Net is proving to be an extraordinary bonanza. The Industry Standard, launched 18 months ago by magazine publisher IDG, was originally 56 pages. Now, with a circulation of 125,000, the weekly's biggest problem is generating enough copy to fill space around the ads. People who took the skeptical view a couple of years ago, and frankly I'm among them, were wrong.
Every publisher wants a piece of the lucrative pie.
Wired, whose circulation rose from 300,000 in 1996 to 415,000 last year, is fat with technology ads. And in a larger sense, the aura of wealth surrounding this burgeoning technology has dazzled even the skeptics. It became too difficult to stay negative and have credibility, because people are just making too much money. Indeed, much of the recent coverage has seemed to celebrate the financial explosion that has brought great riches to young entrepreneurs, canny investors and others fueled by the Web's success. E-news is not only popular and probably more fun than writing about oil prices or Social Security reform but appeals to the younger audience that media companies are desperate to attract.