Red Herring Dumps E-mail Newsletters

By Ryan Naraine

Technology news magazine Red Herring Communications has ceased publication of the its email newsletters and there are strong hints the company will pull back its Web offerings into the parent company.

Red Herring, which has editorial offices in New York City, has maintained a separate staff for the Red Herring Online site but, with no end in sight to the depressed online advertising market, the company appears to be moving swiftly to slash expenses.

“(We) will focus our online efforts exclusively on our Web site,” Red Herring said in an announcement to subscribers.

It is the second time in recent months that cutbacks have been implemented at the San Francisco-based company. In September, Red Herring laid off about 17 percent of its workforce and publication of the print edition was scaled back from two issues a month to one.

Industry watchers believe the latest move is part of plans by Red Herring to suspend the online operations altogether, noting that the production of an email newsletter involves marginal overhead expenses.

Company officials could not be reached for comment at press time.

The move is the latest in a string of bad news emanating from Web business trade publishers. More recently, Upside Media shut down its Upside Today online property and Standard Media International shuttered its business trade magazine The Industry Standard and sold its assets in bankruptcy court.

In July, AOL Time Warner purchased Future Network’s ailing new economy publication Business 2.0. AOL relaunched the publication under its Fortune Group after merging it with the staff and subscribers of its own eCompany Now.

Red Herring Communications, which has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and London, has a 320,000-strong subscription list for its print title which covers issues, trends, and companies.

The company was founded in 1993 with financial backing from ZDNet and Broadview Capital Partners.