‘Industry Standard’ Relaunches Online with Prediction Market Feature

Click to enlarge

The Industry Standard magazine, which folded in late summer of 2001, is returning, this time as a web-only publication.

The site, from parent IDG, will contain content largely made up of short contributions from 50 journalists and bloggers covering the online economy market. The site will also include a prediction market feature that uses community input to predict outcomes in the market, writes Folio.

In 2000, the Industry Standard pulled in about 7,500 pages of advertising, but by the time it folded - when negotiations between publisher Standard Media and majority owner IDG fell through - the magazine was a mere 90 pages per issue, and it had attained the dubious distinction of being first in terms of decline in ad pages and revenue.

The site has been in development for a year and has been through a private beta test. It launches today in a public beta form.

IDG is now the sole owner of the magazine. Derek Butcher, who was Infoworld’s CTO, says the new Standard will “have to deliver. We can’t rest on the brand.” He was pleasantly surprised, he says, to learn via market research how much recognition and brand equity the Standard still has.

Butcher points out that the “editorial collective” model is a new one for IDG, so the beta launch of the site is an important step.

The communal functionality of the site really comes into play with the prediction feature. The feature requires users to register with the site. They then get 100,000 Industry Standard Dollars to bet for or against an industry “event” (such as whether Microsoft will eventually buy Yahoo). The more users who bet in favor of an event, the more its market price goes up. “The price represents the market’s consensus of the probability of that event occurring,” says Butcher.

Butcher plans to package the metrics with user demographics and sell the information into financial and media channels. The site will also sell traditional display ads. Intel is exclusive launch sponsor for the first three months.

Costs for the site have been kept deliberately very low, according to Butcher, who added that after a year, anything below 500,000 monthly page views would be considered disappointing.