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Peter Lewis joined Fortune magazine a year and a half ago as a senior editor, after 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. His editorial duties at
the magazine keep him plenty busy these days, but he still finds time to update his Web-only column, "Peter Lewis on Technology," about three times a week.
The Web allows Lewis to break news, something he rarely gets to do in the print publication. While at a recent trade show, for example, he filed daily updates of the Web-only
column, while the print pub could not have gotten that news on the street in less than 45 days.
According to Mediatrix, Fortune.com drew 2.1 million unique visitors in April 2002. Readers are affluent, high-powered, business decision makers. They skew male (62 percent),
have a median age of 38, and a median income just over $79,000 per household.
Content/Contacts
The Web column covers gizmos and gadgets: all the cool consumer stuff the digital age has to offer. "I run the toy department," Lewis jokes. The column addresses "issues
related to real human beings who spend their own money on technology that they will use on their own time. That means any pitches with the words 'enterprise,' 'ASP,' 'corporate,'
I don't want to hear. I have no interest in enterprise technology."
What makes a new toy column-worthy? "I focus on products that allow the consumer to do something they have not been able to do before; that allow them to do something they have
done before but in a new way, preferably easier and cheaper; and existing products that come out at an aggressive new price point," he says.
Pitch Tips
Lewis wants pitches via email, and the best way to catch his eye is to stick to the basics. "The good pitches come from people who read what I write, and understand where a
product might fit in our coverage.
"Conversely, the bad pitches, which unfortunately constitute the majority of them, are either products that fall outside the consumer technology area or that come from PR
people who don't understand how the product fits in the overall marketplace."
Get on his good side and he's likely to read your emails first. "There are a handful [of PR pros] whom I enjoy working with and look forward to hearing from," he says. "They
think a step ahead and understand what I have covered, what I haven't covered that might be of interest to the readers."
Comments
Lewis wants to be timely, and the Web environment frees his hands in that regard.
"In my previous life in the newspaper business, with a daily forum, I took exclusivity a lot more seriously than I do now with a magazine that has such a long lead time and
comes out every two weeks," he said. "The Web column, on the other hand, gives me the ability to be more competitive not just on a daily basis, but on an hourly basis. So the
sooner I find out about something, the sooner I can tell my readers about it."
The bottom line is fun. The Web column gives Lewis the chance to play, to test drive the newest and the coolest. Want in? Pitch him something with an "ooh-ah" quotient too high
to resist.
In The Pipeline
Looking ahead, Lewis says he is anxious to include more "toy" analysis reporting, in addition to his "toy" reviews. "As technology becomes more common and more complex, I am on
the lookout for sources who can explain, in terms that the average consumer can understand, the technologies that [consumers] are going to encounter in their day-to-day lives," he
says. "I always enjoy talking to product managers and developers who not only can explain the technology, but can put it into the context" of the consumer's actual experience.