line56
1 Market St.
Spear Tower
36th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
415/293-8443
http://www.line56.com
Whenever a new business trend or marketplace emerges, the publications that pop up to cover it inevitably start out broad and become more vertical as the technology and talent in the field mature. So
as digital commerce moves from infancy to adolescence, it's really not so surprising to see the launch of line56, a new bimonthly print magazine and sister Internet portal devoted solely to the
management side of b-to-b e-commerce. If ever there were a Web niche laden with gold, this is it. Global b-to-b transactions have topped $47 trillion and continue to rise. line56 cleverly borrows
its title from Act III, Scene I, Line 56 of Hamlet: "To be or not to be" (yuck yuck). The book debuts with a controlled circulation of 100,000, but publishers may consider selective distribution
on newsstands in the future.
Content/Contacts
line56 caters to chiefs at ebusiness companies (CEOs, CFOs and CTOs) as well as offline businesses that are venturing into the world of electronic commerce. Secondary audiences include
institutional investors, analysts and managers who run b-to-b exchanges (online marketplaces). Keep in mind, however, that technology nerdspeak is not the major focus. Rather, the magazine concentrates
on how businesses do business with each other on the Web. "If you are interested in the entirety of the technology business, including computing hardware, networking and semiconductors, this magazine
will not serve you particularly well," editor-in-chief Adrian Mello writes in the inaugural issue. "Nor will it introduce you to the 41st new e-petshop, the 22nd new search engine, or the 100,000th new
e-company attempting to capture consumer eyeballs and dollars over the Internet."
The Web incarnation of line56 is weighted heavily toward breaking news, while the magazine is more feature-oriented. Email press releases (and press releases ONLY) to [email protected]. All other pitches can be channeled through executive editor Howard Baldwin at [email protected]. "I
prefer email - not because I don't want to speak with PR people, but because I can save them and look at them more carefully when I have time, instead of having to make a quick decision by phone," he
says. "Plus I can forward an email to someone if it's relevant to a story they're working on."
Pitch Tips
Baldwin's pet peeve is the ol' "throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks" approach. "In my mind, there can't be more than a dozen magazines that are truly pertinent [to a given story idea]. You
should know those magazines so well that your pitch can't possibly miss," he says. Although reporters have characterized line56 in the same genre with Industry Standard, Business 2.0, Upside,
eCompany and Red Herring, its focus is narrower - b-to-b or bust. "If someone sends me something about b-to-c, even if it's the most sexy thing in the world, it's not what my readers are
interested in," Baldwin says.
Baldwin is open to suggestions for features, as well as short pieces for the magazine's Dispatches section. Take note that line56 is not a "product book." If you've got a hot product, pitch it
in the context of a real-life case study and provide examples of customers who have used it and benefited from it. Also, think global. Profiles of specific companies, industry leaders or technology
segments are good bets.
Comments
"The best PR people understand that what I'm looking for is a unique story - not just an understanding of where their company fits in the supply chain," Baldwin says. The fact that your company is
doing business online is not news.
Features in the magazine's premier issue include a hard look at VerticalNet's bottom line, lessons learned from Iridium's failed business model, and how global businesses are dealing with the need for
real-time collaboration across borders and time zones.